Terry Young (Longman, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

When the COVID-19 virus began spreading around the world early last year, the Morrison government put the health and wellbeing of Australians at the forefront of our response. We listened to advice from health experts, like Australian government Chief Medical Officer Professor Paul Kelly, and we continue to do so. We secured our international borders and worked with the states and territories to introduce quarantine systems. We have provided, and continue to provide, unprecedented levels of direct economic support to help individuals, families and businesses in all states and territories get through this pandemic. The economic measures we have put in place are vital not only for the economic health of the nation but for the mental health of all Australians. Many businessowners and employees would have otherwise faced the prospect of losing their jobs and financial stress at home caused by the loss of an income.

This latest outbreak in Victoria is not a small matter, and the Australian government in the 2021-22 budget announced just two weeks ago anticipated that future COVID-19 outbreaks would occur in Australia. Our budget measures were calibrated accordingly, with the budget providing an additional $41 billion of COVID related economic support on top of existing support. In the 2021-22 budget, the Australian government provided a further $1.7 billion to extend our COVID-19 health response package and a further $1.9 billion for vaccine purchases and rollout. These measures bring the total health related COVID expenditure to over $25 billion.

We have extended the operation of the Medicare COVID-19 pathology test items until the end of this year. The more than 300 temporary telehealth items that were implemented in March 2020 have also been extended until the end of this year. These items were previously due to stop at the end of this month. As of yesterday 60.2 million telehealth services have been delivered to 14 million patients, with nearly $3.1 billion in benefits paid. The government continues to work with peak bodies to co-design permanent telehealth as part of reforms to modernise Medicare and provide flexibility of access to primary and allied healthcare services.

On 13 March last year the Australian government and all state and territory governments signed the National Partnership on COVID-19 Response. As part of this partnership we will cover 50 per cent of costs incurred by state and territory public health and hospital systems when responding to COVID-19 outbreaks. From 31 March last year we guaranteed the viability of private hospitals to respond to COVID-19 and to help them resume operations at the end of the pandemic. As of 7 May this year the government has provided $5.5 billion to states and territories under this partnership. As of yesterday there were 142 COVID-19 GP led respiratory clinics operating nationally, of which 19 are Aboriginal community controlled health services and 80 are situated outside of metropolitan areas. More than 1,265,600 consultations have occurred in these clinics, and more than 1.1 million COVID tests have been conducted. These GP led clinics have serviced patients from 2,430 different postcodes, including those in my electorate of Longman.

Throughout the COVID-19 vaccination program, vaccination has continued to scale appropriately with the available vaccine supply. The first million vaccine doses were delivered in 47 days, the second million were delivered in 19 days, the third million were delivered in 17 days and the fourth million took another 13 days to administer. Above all else, safety remains the highest priority. We will not rush this rollout and risk the safety of Australians. We will continue to take the advice of our medical experts and act accordingly.

The Australian government has also provided up to $3.2 billion to secure essential PPE equipment and other medical supplies along with antibiotics and antivirals to help in preventing the transmission of COVID-19. More than half a billion masks have been secured by the department of health to ensure a continued supply to frontline healthcare workers. We have also committed $374 million to researching COVID, including research on vaccines, treatment and clinical responses.

Since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the Australian government has provided more than $2 billion to support people in aged care. We have implemented a dedicated pathology service for rapid specimen collection and testing of suspected cases. As of 25 May, Sonic Healthcare, under contract to the Australian government, had conducted 369,000 tests at 2,432 unique residential aged-care facilities across Australia. The government has responded to the public health challenges facing Australia and will continue to do so.

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