Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, I acknowledge the frustration and the distress of the people of Victoria in having to go into a further lockdown. I've not been in the unfortunate position of being in a lockdown, but I've no doubt that it wouldn't be a nice thing and that it certainly would not be good for mental health. Having said that, we have to acknowledge the aims of the Australian vaccination program from the very beginning, back in January of this year. The aims of the program were to prevent death and severe disease; to ensure equity of vaccine access and uptake and, in order to do that, to protect those most likely to experience serious disease, maintain the functioning of healthcare and other essential services; to preserve health, social and economic security, and to extend vaccination to the general population as quickly as possible. That is exactly what this government has done.

This was always going to be an accelerated rollout. This is not something where there is a handbook that you can check off as you go along. This is a one-in-100-year pandemic. Others can criticise the functioning of the government or the actions of the government, but we have to look at the cold hard facts of what we have achieved, not twist those facts around for our own political gain. Some 4,243,000 people have been vaccinated, 2,705,000 with Commonwealth vaccine doses. There have been 2,359,000 Commonwealth doses in primary care and 345,000 Commonwealth doses in aged and disability. Fifty-seven per cent of 70-year-old people and 37 per cent of those over the age of 50 have been vaccinated.

In my electorate I have some 80-odd aged-care facilities. They have all received their first doses. We have a population of close to 30 per cent over the age of 65. The litmus test is when people stop you in the street, call you in the office or email you if there are problems. The overwhelming majority of people in my electorate are happy with the way this program is being rolled out. There are always going to be difficulties with these types of programs, these huge objectives by a government to ensure the health and safety of a nation

That brings me back to cold hard facts. Two months ago, two million people had had their vaccinations. Over the space of the last month, that increased, as per the accelerated rollout of the vaccine, by two million—500,000 people a week. The seven-day average last week was 630,000; the week before, 300,000. So, two weeks ago, it was 300,000. Last week, it was 630,000. The government is getting those doses out, just as we promised, to ensure the safety and the health of our citizens.

The previous speaker opposite started talking about quarantine. I'll be fair. Take a bow, Michael Gunner. Take a bow, Premier Palaszczuk. You got your quarantine right. You can pat yourself on the back. But, when it goes wrong, don't turn around and say, 'That's the Commonwealth government's fault.' Turn around and look at your own systems. Turn around and examine what you have done wrong on the last four occasions. When you get it wrong, take the blame. Don't turn around and try and blame the Commonwealth government for your failed processes—because that's exactly what has happened. The Commonwealth government will come in and assist you, as we are doing now, to clean up the mess that you have created by not having the right protocols in place, and we've done that through $48 billion in funding over the past 12 months. The state government provided a mere $13 billion. So we are there for the Victorian people, we will continue to be there for the Victorian people and we will continue the rollout.

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