Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I'm actually delighted to take on this MPI because I want to start by thanking Australians who have come forward to be vaccinated in record numbers week after week after week after week: from over 300,000 to 402,000 Australians who were vaccinated, 436,000 Australians who were vaccinated, 512,000 Australians who were vaccinated and then 630,000 Australians who were vaccinated in the last seven-day period. As the Prime Minister indicated, when you bring that forward by one day it was a rolling seven-day average of 672,000. What we see is that rates of vaccinations being administered have more than doubled. We see this in a world where, in the last 24 hours, there were 403,000 cases that were officially recorded with 8,800 lives lost, so the global comparison with Australia, a country which this year has had 94 days of zero cases of community transmission, could not be starker or more obvious.

There are challenges at the moment. We know that Victorians are facing a great challenge. But we also know that we can do this. New South Wales faced a challenge over the four weeks from 16 December to 16 January which, on current figures, was roughly four times greater in terms of community transmission. They were able to test and trace and distance, and there were areas such as the Northern Beaches which had significant restrictions. All of Victoria is under restrictions as we speak, and so I say to every fellow Victorian, I understand the deep distress and the challenge that is being faced at the moment. That's why we've stepped in. We've stepped in with all of the actions that have been taken: 160 Defence personnel, the support of asymptomatic testing, the declaration of the Commonwealth hotspot test. All of these things are occurring at the moment.

In particular, we add that we know that in Victoria there are currently 787,000 vaccines that have been provided to the state, and to their credit they've administered 494,000 of those vaccines, with a significant inventory still available to them and another 172,000 vaccines to be delivered over the course of this week. These are very significant numbers, a rollout which is accelerating as was always intended and which is following a combination of both supply and now response in relation to public demand. One of the messages which is absolutely clear is: please do not wait. If you catch COVID, you could die. If you have not been vaccinated, your chances of losing your life are massively, massively higher. That's why any vaccination at any time is so fundamentally important. In the last 24 hours, there have been 119,139 Australians who have brought themselves forward to protect themselves but also to protect every other Australian, and I commend and thank them. That takes us now to 4,362,739 vaccinations, so a significant number and a significant acceleration. Very importantly, that number includes over 1½ million Australians beyond the age of 70 who've been vaccinated: 1.574 million Australians over the age of 70 have had a first dose, which equates to over 53 per cent, as the Prime Minister indicated, and over three million people over the age of 50 have been vaccinated with at least one dose, which is 34 per cent of the population in Victoria. I particularly want to commend Victorians for this—412,000 people have stepped forward over the age of 70, or 54 per cent of the over-70 population, and 817,000 over the age of 50 have stepped forward, or over 37 per cent of over 50s in Victoria, so these are very important.

I particularly want to note what we have seen in aged care, as I've said in the course of question time, is 100 per cent of Commonwealth residential aged-care facilities have received first doses within Victoria, the ACT, Tasmania and the Northern Territory and 99 per cent in others, with an expected five as of the close of business tomorrow which are still to be completed and to be done in the coming days when issues such as gastro or any other impediments no longer apply to those facilities. These are exceptionally important steps forward.

I want to respectfully but very much categorically take issue with the shadow minister's points in relation to first doses. Professor Paul Kelly, the chief medical officer, addressed significant questions which had been raised last week, last Thursday, about the value of a first dose. I note the next day many people are saying, 'Why don't we hold back second doses just to deliver more first doses?' On all fronts, for both the timing of first and second doses, we follow the medical advice, and that's the medical advice of both the TGA, which has approved the vaccines which are available for use in Australia, and the Australian Technical Advisory Group on Immunisation. In terms of the advice of Professor Paul Kelly—we know it from the clinical trails; we know it from the laboratory tests that have been done about antibody protections; we know it from real-world experience, particularly in the UK and Scotland where they have very good information now about the protection given by both the AstraZeneca vaccine and the Pfizer vaccine after the first dose—there's zero protection with no dose and very good protection with the first dose. Then, from next week, we'll be starting to see those second doses rolling out in relation to AstraZeneca, and those numbers of fully vaccinated people will rapidly rise over the coming weeks. That was the medical advice from ATAGI about that dose interval, and that was the very clear response of Professor Paul Kelly.

I understand the job of the opposition is to provide difference. On this occasion, I don't think it's wise, I don't think it's responsible. I had strong views, which I expressed in question time of last week. I am both surprised and disappointed that the opposition has pursued a line which would indicate that this is not an important and fundamental protection. I think that this is the case, as we saw in the TriCare aged-care facility in the Sunshine Coast. It's a facility which I have recently visited with the member for Moncrieff. They had a contractor who was working within the facility precinct who was diagnosed out of Byron Bay. That facility had received a first dose some weeks before and, indeed, was given a second dose almost immediately because they were coming to the end.

That is very similar to the situation of Arcare Maidstone, which had residents vaccinated on 12 May. There was one worker who was vaccinated who nevertheless tested positive and one resident, a 99-year-old, who was vaccinated and nevertheless tested positive. That resident is asymptomatic and, on the latest advice I have from the Victorian Aged Care Response Centre shortly before coming to question time, has been moved for observation purposes to a hospital facility and to ensure that they are isolated from the rest of the residents. On all the advice that I have, they remain in very good condition. Of course, anybody anywhere with COVID, no matter what the circumstances, is a person who is vulnerable to serious illness, but the vaccination process, first dose and then subsequently second dose, provides very significant measures of protection against serious illness and loss of life.

Finally, I want to deal with this question of the single-site worker decision. In question time I specifically addressed the policy, which was endorsed by the AHPPC and tabled before the national cabinet—without any demur, I'm advised. That policy was very clear that single-site arrangements are complex and should not be required where there is a low risk of COVID-19. That was the view of the chief health and medical officers around Australia. It was also very much the view of the HSU in their case before the Fair Work Commission and it was a position which they took to the Fair Work Commission and which they were successful in prosecuting against an aged-care facility. Nevertheless, we have these arrangements in place. We follow the medical advice. We implemented them immediately in line with the medical advice when the hotspot was declared. All of these actions together are helping to save lives and protect lives and keep Australia as one of the safest countries in the world.

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