David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I totally reject a lot of the premises that the member for Rankin just brought out. The Australian record on managing the COVID pandemic, a one-in-a-hundred-year event, is second to none. I don't know any person in any country who wouldn't prefer to be living here and seeing how we've managed it compared to the devastation that it has wrought around the world. A pandemic is a one-in-a-hundred-year event, and we should be incredibly proud of our vaccine program.

Mr Deputy Speaker, two out of every three people over the age of 50 years have now received their first or second vaccine. Eighty per cent of those over 70 have received their first vaccine, and 42 per cent will receive it shortly. There is a lag in these figures because most of the vaccines are AstraZeneca. All of a sudden, when three months ticks over, a lot of these figures will double. That's as opposed to the Pfizer vaccine, which has only a three-week interval. Four out of 10 people over the age of 16 have been vaccinated.

As I said, when you look at the devastation overseas and you see what's happened, you realise that how we've managed it here in this country is exceptional. We are having our worst second wave and still we've managed to suppress it to 3,700 total cases. There are many cities around the world that have more than that in their second wave. Unfortunately, we have had 16 deaths this year, 925 in total in the whole pandemic. That is exceptional. Our hospitals and the care people are receiving in Australia are second to none. The mortality rate in ICUs is a fraction of what it has been overseas, because we've managed our health system well.

Around regional Australia, which is home to many of my constituents, we have had 2.2 million doses distributed far and wide. If you count the larger cities, that's 3.4 million out of a total 12.7 million. Whether it's Tibooburra in the far west of New South Wales, Eucla in WA or Kangaroo Island, we've had the Royal Flying Doctor Service delivering almost 10,000 vaccines to remote and regional Australia. The rollout is ramping up. We have got 5,000 GPs who've expressed an interest, and in regional and rural Australia we have over 108 Aboriginal community controlled health organisations that are vaccinating, both with AstraZeneca and with Pfizer.

The member for Rankin had a go at the economic consequences. We have weathered the economic consequences of this pandemic so much better than other nations. When we got the economy going again, we had more people back in employment than were there before the pandemic started. Other countries and nations have had double-digit reductions in their GDP. Even with this lockdown, we are still way ahead of all those other nations. When all the emotion has gone out of it, there are so many people who realise how well we have done. As Lieutenant General Frewen, who's been running the rollout, said, 'It's convenience that counts.' That's why part of our plan involves getting more GPs involved and more pharmacies involved. We've already got 226 pharmacies delivering vaccines. By the end of this month, there will be over 500. As more vaccine doses become available, they will be rolled out by potentially 3,600 pharmacy outlets. That's on top of the potential full rollout to more and more general practices, not to mention the Commonwealth vaccination centres. On top of that, we have the jurisdictions running their major hubs and outlets. We've brought on board a lot of pharmacies in the breakout areas in Sydney and in south-west Sydney in particular to make it much more convenient.

Dr Karen Price from the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners has just validated our decision, and the decision of ATAGI and the TGA, to approve the rollout of the Pfizer vaccine, which is one of the mRNA vaccines, to immunocompromised young people to enable them to get vaccinated. People with chronic diabetes, people who have had cancer, people on immunosuppressants, people with chronic lung disease, cystic fibrosis—all of those people who really need the vaccine will be able to get it. That will also involve getting those vaccines out and around regional Australia.

Professor Jodie McVernon from the Doherty institute has modelled our plan, and we are methodically rolling that plan out. We aim to get to 70 per cent vaccinated by the end of the year, which will allow a reduction in a lot of the restrictions. I expect we will get 80 per cent, because when you have more vaccines available in more outlets, the numbers will increase exponentially. Over the last 24 hours, we've hit 200,000 vaccinations. That's an exceptional rollout. That's 1.4 million vaccines per week. Since the first month, when we were starved of vaccines for a variety of reasons, including that the European Union blocked the delivery to this country of 3.6 million vaccine doses we had secured in a commercial arrangement, we have seen a million doses a week coming into the country, and there will probably be 1.4 million delivered during this current week. That will continue.

We have also been supporting the economy. In the states that have been affected by the lockdown, the Commonwealth has been involved in a directed economic rescue package to individuals, with $750 per week if you've lost more than 20 hours work or $450 if you've lost at least 8 or less than 20 hours of work. Then, for people who have lost their part-time job and who are on income support, there's a $200 payment that can go to them to supplement that. In the jurisdictions, we've done a deal, fifty-fifty with New South Wales, to get Service New South Wales to roll out support direct to businesses. In New South Wales, that support alone has reached $1 billion.

So we have supported the economy and we have kept the nation safe. We have done so much to make the vaccination rollout and the economic management second to none around the world. We shouldn't listen to this nitpicking, negative response by the members on the other side. You have just got to realise that we're all in this together. We are rolling out the vaccination. We were slow out of the blocks, but everyone can recognise, because they see the numbers themselves every day, that the rollout is ramping up at an amazing rate, and it will ramp up even further. We put money into research into vaccines. We have put extra funds into managing mental health. Isolation is very distressing to the elderly, to young people, to everyone. We've put money in all sorts of digital programs, because what we've learnt from COVID is that a lot of the work gets deliver by digital means. Whether it's telehealth, Lifeline or the headspace rollout, all these things are part of a strategy to support the nation during a one-in-100-year event.

There is nothing that we shouldn't be proud of. The whole health workforce has put their shoulder to the wheel, and they will continue to do so. I look forward to seeing many more people getting back to a normal life in the coming months and going forward. There is a way through this pandemic. First of all, there is vaccination at a mass level, which reduces the severity of the illness and protects you and your loved ones, making mortality much less likely, and then also there are all the emerging new treatments, like I said on the ABC the other day. We've had Relenza and Tamiflu. We will also have treatment for this disease. (Time expired)

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