PARKES MP Mark Coulton has thrown his support behind the federal government's coronavirus app.
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Mr Coulton - who lives in Warialda - believes the app will play no risk to the public's privacy and will be "a small price to pay to manage the spread of the coronavirus".
"I certainly will be downloading it," Mr Coulton told the Leader.
"I'm not concerned about my privacy, I think there is plenty of ways people can find out what I am up to and I don't think this app will be of any concern to me in that regard.
"If we want to get back to some normality in our lives, which means we have to live with the virus because we haven't got a cure for it, the way we do that is quickly get on top of an outbreak, isolate those people and that is the best chance we've got of stopping more people from getting the infection."
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However, not all of Mr Coulton's National Party colleagues agree, including New England MP Barnaby Joyce who slammed the app on Sunday.
"I treasure the government knowing as little about me as possible," Mr Joyce told Nine newspapers on Sunday.
"Australia is doing an extraordinary job of flattening the curve by reason that we are overwhelmingly decent and logical people. We don't need an app to tell us that."
Mr Coulton now joins a list of Coalition members including David Littleproud and Stuart Robert to publicly dispute Mr Joyce's view.
"Barnaby is entitled to his own opinion, but I don't share his views," Mr Coulton said.
"When the time comes, I think it will be this week some time, I'll be more than prepared to sign up to it.
"I believe the design of it doesn't really leave people vulnerable, there's protections in there for privacy and what it will do is track down people much more quickly if there is an outbreak."
The government has forecast at least 40 per cent of Australia's population would need to download the app for it to work efficiently.
"My hope is that we do get that many," Mr Coulton said.
"If this app means people get some freedoms back, go back to work and get their job back, I think we will see the uptake go up.
"I think it is a valuable tool because if we want to get our country working again, then we are going to have to make some small sacrifices.
"But quite frankly, this one doesn't concern me."
Billy Jupp
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
Billy is a Senior Livestock Journalist for the Queensland Country Life based in Toowoomba. He has worked for a variety of different ACM mastheads during the past five years including the Namoi Valley Independent, Northern Daily Leader and The Land.
