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

I have always supported the premiers acting on the urgent medical advice that they need to to address serious situations in their states and territories, whether that's the Premier of New South Wales, the Premier of Western Australia or the Premier of Victoria. I support all of those premiers where they're acting on that medical advice, which they are privy to, to address the very urgent situation in New South Wales. They're the people who have to make the decisions. They're the people in the room who are addressing the very serious situation in New South Wales.

If that is what they're being advised to do to arrest the growth in cases in New South Wales, and if that will suppress those cases, drive them down and enable New South Wales to be in a position to make their lockdown effective and not see that virus spread, and enable the country to move into the next phase in a stronger position—I believe that is what the New South Wales Premier is seeking to do, just like the Victorian Premier, who right now is extending a lockdown. That's difficult. I know it's not popular, but these are the necessary decisions with the delta strain of this virus that must be put in place.

What I'm keen to do as Prime Minister is ensure that we're supporting the actions of our states and territories. The Treasurer himself has just highlighted how we're seeking to do that by taking us through with economic supports, with fifty-fifty support of the business support programs in New South Wales. Directly through the COVID-19 disaster assistance payments, some $1.6 billion has been paid to 732,000 people in New South Wales by the federal government to ensure that people in Sydney in particular, but also across New South Wales, with the support of the state government can get through this. I tell you what: investing in them, supporting them, seeing them through and giving them that confidence is the best support we can give to the New South Wales government to ensure that they can take New South Wales through this very difficult time.

In addition to that, the almost 400,000 additional Pfizer doses that have been brought forward and provided to New South Wales to help them combat this virus are also providing great assistance. So, yes, we are supporting the New South Wales government in every which way we can, including with the provision of COVID support from the Australian defence forces, in there on the ground, working side by side with police officers and other emergency service workers, and with rural fire service workers also being enlisted into this cause. I thank them for their work. I thank everybody in New South Wales for their work. Whether they're delivering the vaccines in those DHL vans—whatever they're doing in New South Wales to get people through this, I thank them and I support them.

See this speech in context