Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Sturt for his question. I thank him for his commitment in his electorate and all the members of this place who are out there each and every day supporting their communities and encouraging them to go along and be part of the national vaccination program so that we can hit the targets that are so important for Australia to live with this virus in the future.

Local members are working with their local communities, promoting the opportunities to get the vaccine—whether it's AstraZeneca or Pfizer. They ensure that they're connecting with those thousands upon thousands of points of presence which have seen our vaccination program having turned the corner: 200,558 doses in just the past 24 hours—12.6 million doses. Almost 80 per cent of over seventies have now had that first dose and almost two-thirds of those over 50 have had that first dose. One in five Australians now are double-dose vaccinated and two in five have had that single dose, ensuring that we move towards the vaccination rates that are important.

I want to thank the premiers and the chief ministers, working with the federal government to ensure our shared objectives as a country, which we share with the Australian people, to save lives and to save livelihoods. We know that had we suffered the terrible fatalities of countries around the world—like Australia, advanced economies with sophisticated health systems—more than 30,000 Australians would have perished. The fact that that did not happen in this country is because of the collective effort of millions and millions of Australians working together with the federal government and our counterpart governments in the states and territories.

But it's not just that: a million Australians are getting back into work after last year's COVID-19 recession. Indeed, these lockdowns—which are the necessary response to the latest delta variant, as the Doherty modelling has shown—and this response will also be overcome because this government is standing behind Australians and beside Australians, ensuring that they can get through. Over $1.2 billion is supporting Australians through these lockdowns so that they can get to the other side and so that we can ensure that as we come out of this phase and these lockdowns, as we have seen before, the Australian economy will come back strongly. Australians will get back into those jobs.

As we move to the end of this year we will have a country that has not only been able to save lives—more so than almost any other country in the world today—and have an economic record of coming through this pandemic but we will also be ensuring that everyone who is seeking to get that vaccine will have that opportunity. We'll be moving through that four-phase plan to ensure that Australians can live with the virus in a way that few in the world can.

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