lightnigdance wrote: "The callous and disgusting antics of Plibersek this week is her making the most of a human catastrophe to make cheap political mileage out of it."
Yet, you won't post what she actually said. What she said shows your above comments to be inflammatory, false, misleading and totaly inaccurate. You treated this topic (Ebola) yourself as a laughing matter in the opening posts, no respect at all.
18 October
Ebola reaching our region would be 'catastrophic', Tanya Plibersek warns
As a top World Health Organisation official warned of the "huge" consequences of an Asian outbreak, Labor's foreign affairs spokeswoman Tanya Plibersek continued to press the Abbott government to send Australian medical teams and technical experts to tackle the outbreak at its source in West Africa.
"If we see the virus spreading beyond West Africa into the US or Europe or Asia it becomes increasingly difficult to protect Australia because our transport links, our people-to-people links with those regions are very frequent and very close," Ms Plibersek told Fairfax Media.
"The Australian health system is a very strong one, but not every health system in our region is equally strong. It's potentially catastrophic for our neighbourhood if a country in our region with a weaker health system has an outbreak of Ebola."
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/ebola-reaching-our-region-would-be-catastrophi...
Labor calls on Abbott government to deploy medical teams to Africa to join Ebola fight
October 15
Labor will increase pressure on the Abbott government to do more to help fight the Ebola outbreak in west Africa by publicly calling for the government to deploy medical assistance teams.
Labor's deputy leader and foreign affairs spokeswoman, Tanya Plibersek, and health spokeswoman Catherine King will write to Foreign Affairs Minister Julie Bishop and Health Minister Peter Dutton on Thursday to request they immediately make arrangements to deploy Australian personnel to the region.
The outbreak has infected almost 9000 people and claimed more than 4000 lives.
The United States Centres for Disease Control and Prevention estimate that the number of Ebola cases in Sierra Leone and Liberia is doubling every 20 days, and by January could reach 1.4 million cases on present trends.
In the letter, Ms Plibersek writes of Labor's "grave concern" about the government's response to the rapidly escalating crisis, which she calls "the most serious health emergency of the modern era"
.Australia's contribution to date has been limited to donations totalling $18 million, a contribution that was overtaken on Wednesday by a donation by Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and his wife Priscilla Chan of $US25 million ($US28.7 million).
Labor supports the government's financial contribution, which has been welcomed by the United Nations, but says money alone is not enough.
It is calling for the government to deploy Australian Medical Assistance Teams, including doctors, nurses, paramedics, pharmacists and logisticians, which were sent to the Philippines last year following typhoon Haiyan.
It also wants the government to support other specialist Australian personnel such as doctors and nurses to travel to the region to support efforts to combat the outbreak.
The Australian Medical Association, the Public Health Association of Australia and aid organisations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres and Save the Children have criticised Australia for refusing to send personnel to Africa to support international efforts.
Read more: http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/labor-calls-on-abbott-government-to-deploy-med...
