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

It's my great pleasure to be here again this week. If you were designing a system that was always watertight, you'd only have to look at the figures out of the hotel quarantine system that the members on the other side have criticised. There have been 409,095 arrivals since 3 August, of which 4,187 have tested positive for COVID. There was 0.01 per cent identified with COVID in the intake. That is a pretty good system. The vast majority of those were isolated, treated and effectively quarantined.

The Commonwealth resilience centre in the Northern Territory has been built up to take a capacity of 2,000 people. Just in the last month, there have been 10 or more facilitated commercial flights. That will ramp up to another 19 in August.

As the members on the other side would appreciate, the restrictions on arrivals—whilst we stamp the passport at a federal level, there is input via the states, and they have limited the numbers that have been able to arrive. Also, the commercial nature of flights means that there is never a full flight because they have to be socially distanced on the plane, which has led to very high costs for flights. That's why the Commonwealth government has stepped up to facilitate these commercial flights. But the quota has been reduced by the states by 50 per cent or so. That's only 1,505 per week into New South Wales, which has been carrying the biggest weight of incoming arrivals from overseas, and pro rata across the other states. I'm not saying it's perfect, but that is the result of our Commonwealth acting with the states.

In our Commonwealth, the constitutional powers for public health orders rest with the states. We haven't given them a whole new set of powers. As John Howard mentioned on the weekend:

The commonwealth cannot make public health orders for the states. The impression is that the premiers have taken up new powers. But that is not the case. The situation has always been that if something was required in public health, it had to be done by the states.

It's a rock solid fact of life in Australia that we in Canberra can't do everything. We rely on partnership with the state governments that run the hospitals and the health system, and we're partners with them together as a nation. We have initiated these regular national cabinet meetings for that very reason. What are those opposite suggesting? We don't meet with the premiers? No, we do it as a team.

I know it's been a big week for everyone. 'Thank god it's Thursday,' many on the other side must be thinking, because they have been obsessed with criticising the national vaccination campaign. I just want to reiterate some of the facts. We are ramping up our vaccination program. It's obvious to anyone except the people on the other side who won't accept the fact we have been ramping up the vaccination program. We have just hit 13 million vaccinations. That's 221,000 in the last 24 hours. They have been criticising us for something that the state of New South Wales decided to do, and there's a lot of logic in it. It was disappointing to see those vaccines retargeted into the pandemic hotspots in Sydney because we do realise that young people are good spreaders of this horrible disease. It is very infectious. It is different with delta. I can follow their logic, but it's their call. They have to make these big decisions, but the Commonwealth program has continued.

We haven't changed anything; in fact, we've ramped it up. There's another 183,000 doses we have redirected that are going into New South Wales out of the accelerated delivery by Pfizer. By 9 August and the week after, those doses will be back on track. The pharmacies have been brought on a month earlier than planned. We have got GPs around the nation delivering vaccines. They still have access to Pfizer and AstraZeneca. In fact, 80 per cent of those over 70 are vaccinated with their first dose and 44 per cent with their second. Because of the nature of the AstraZeneca vaccine, those figures will rapidly increase as they come around for their second dose. Two out of three over the age of 50 have had a vaccine. That is a really good outcome.

There were 280 million doses ordered by the Commonwealth. They criticise us for not having enough vaccines. Is not 280 million enough? The last time I looked, we don't need a census; there are 25 million people in Australia, so we have 10 times more vaccines. Apart from the AstraZeneca facility that CSL is making in Melbourne, and other researchers and developers, that is what we have had to deliver. The Pfizer supply out of the US stayed in the US. We tried to access them earlier, but they weren't available for sale. Similarly, they weren't available for sale in Europe. We ordered a protein subunit vaccine, a viral vector vaccine and messenger RNA vaccines. We have got more Moderna coming on. When more supplies of messenger RNA turn up we will have 3,600 pharmacies. That will increase the ramp up. It'll be even quicker than what is happening now.

In the first month there were 34,000 vaccines. In the last day we've had 221,000 vaccines injected into people's arms. That's an amazing increase. We will be on track for 1.4 million doses per week and that's before we have 500 pharmacies and more GPs signed up to vaccinate. A lot of the general practice systems have increased their efficiency and the amount that they are getting through each week. They are the predominant and the largest source of vaccination to this day—bigger than the jurisdiction system. We have had the whole health system with their shoulder to the wheel. Everyone has been under pressure. The state health ministers, the state hospital systems, the general practices, the pharmacists—everyone has been under pressure. The Commonwealth have had our shoulder to the wheel—$11 billion in direct spending for vaccines and pandemic support.

As you know, delta is different. Anyone would think that we have something unique. Even in vaccinated countries there's been a second wave of delta. Around the world—in America, in the UK, in Asia, in the Middle East—the same thing has happened.

In regional Australia we've been exceptionally efficient given the size and breadth of this land. In the Modified Monash Model categories 2 to 7—that's outside the capital cities—we've had at least 2.3 million first doses. If you count the second doses that's 3.4. Some of the highest rates of vaccination have been in regional Australia. In fact, it goes through to the Apple aisle of Tasmania with over 50 per cent. Here in the ACT they have similarly done that. But even on the North Coast, where I live, some of the highest rates were in that region compared to south-west Sydney. So regional Australia has been looked after very well.

As more supplies come online, both the state-run hubs and the Commonwealth vaccination centres—more GPs, more pharmacists and we've got the commercial operators mopping up the last residential aged-care facilities and the disability sector. We've had the flying doctor on the job. They visited 88 remote sites around the nation, including down in Kangaroo Island. Around the nation we've got systems in place. Sure, it was a slow start off because of those factors I've mentioned before. There would've been 3½ million more AstraZeneca in people's arms if the EU hadn't put an embargo on them leaving Europe. That was quite reasonable because we were victims of our own success. We had the disease under control. It is just a fallacy that we have failed in the vaccination system or the quarantine system.

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