Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker, Minister for Regional Health, Regional Communications and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Grey for his question. All Australians can rest assured they will have access to vaccines and that's regardless of where they live or how remote they are. Regional Australia has done very well in managing the pandemic. Indeed, as I've said before in this House, probably the safest place on the planet for the last 18 months regarding COVID-19 has been regional Australia. The vaccines are rolling out. The Acting Prime Minister and the minister for health have mentioned that six million vaccines have been delivered right across Australia. I'm pleased to report that nearly 1.6 million of those have been in the regions and across 1,500 sites.

In regional Australia, we're using a variety of delivery methods. We have partnerships with state and territory governments—they're doing a great job in providing clinics—the Royal Flying Doctor Service, community pharmacies and, of course, our ever-present reliable GPs in country areas. The Royal Flying Doctor Service is going to deliver to 80 remote locations, 30,000 Australians. The innovation of that service—they've developed freezers that can run on the electric supply of those Royal Flying Doctor planes to deliver the Pfizer vaccine to remote locations. Indeed, Eucla, out on the Nullarbor was the first place to receive that. Not only did the locals turn up but people travelled large distances by aeroplane to receive that. The member for Grey's electorate, which represents such a large area of South Australia—the APY Lands, Yalata, Oak Valley—will receive vaccines delivered by the Royal Flying Doctor Service.

We're also turning to community pharmacy. Last Monday I was in the member for Wright's electorate at Terry White's Pharmacy at Boonah. I witnessed the first vaccine delivered in regional Queensland by a pharmacy. The pharmacies will fill in the gaps where general practice and other facilities might not be available. We will see that roll out across Queensland and ultimately in other states as well.

We encourage all Australians to take up the opportunity. Just in finishing, last week a couple left Victoria and had a very long, in-depth and interesting trip through western New South Wales and visited many of the delights across the member for Riverina's electorate and my electorate. I have to say, those communities have stepped up. Large numbers of people are being tested. As of now, there are no positive cases. So regional Australians are doing their bit, they're stepping up when they need to, and the federal government is providing a way to make sure that the entire areas of regional areas of regional Australia are covered by the vaccine.

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