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

Everyone needs to realise that this is a one-in-100-years event. There is no playbook for pandemics unless you happened to be around in 2019, 2020 and 2021. What we've been through has been responded to probably more effectively in this nation than in any other nation on the planet. One only has to look at the projections of what would have happened if we hadn't had a successful pandemic plan that was rolled out around the country. The projections for our population and our age mix were that there would have been at least 30,000 deaths. Fortunately, we have reduced this 30-fold, to less than a thousand. It's tragic when anyone dies, but, compared to how severe it could have been, it's quite a testament to what everyone in this nation has achieved.

We've had the state health systems under pressure. We've had general practice under pressure. We've had pharmacies rolling sleeves up. We've had the Army involved. We've had commercial contractors. We've rolled it out around the network of residential aged-care facilities. We're getting it through the disability sector now. We have had 280 million vaccine doses on order. Everyone knows we had a bit of a hold-up at the front because the European Union blocked delivery of 3½ million contracted doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine. We've had a home-grown vaccine facility built in Melbourne. We have got Moderna coming through, with another 10 million doses by the end of the year, starting in September.

It isn't just the health response that has kept this nation going through this pandemic. We have had huge Commonwealth government support for individuals and for businesses. Everyone knows how successful JobKeeper was and how much JobSeeker also helped. In this second wave of delta, which is a much more easily transmissible variant of the COVID-19 virus, we've supported with the COVID disaster payment in the hotspots as they are declared, lasting for more than a week. We have helped support the state governments for business support which the states are rolling through their support networks—Service NSW in New South Wales, for instance. The economic response has also been supporting other industries. We have the housing industry seeing the greatest expansion of new homeowners in a generation.

In the cold, hard light of day, without all the emotion that the other side throws at us all the time, we have delivered a vaccine rollout that will meet its targets by December. The figures just speak for themselves; 268,000 doses in 24 hours is an amazing achievement. In the first month of the rollout there were 34,000 doses. At this rate, we will be at about 1½ million doses each week. That is exceptional. With this second wave, the benefit of the vaccines is starting to show, because even though there is a suppressed second wave the death rate is not as high as in the first wave.

Whether you look at the economic response or the health response, the outcomes in Australia are quite exceptional compared to other nations. We've seen GDPs collapse by 11 or 12 per cent in other nations. This second wave is having an outcome that will destroy that bounce back, but the fundamentals of our economy are still here. It could have been destroyed in that first wave but the Commonwealth government stumped up. It wasn't just that; it was the tax reform measures and the initiative to improve cash flow. Whether it was supporting people on income support or age pensioners, or any of the myriad other income support measures, we have supported everyone, and we know that once we get through this second wave we will bounce back.

In regional Australia, my particular area, it is quite an amazing rollout. We have the flying doctor going around the country to 95 sites. They're up to almost 11,000 doses so far and they'll keep delivering it around this wide brown land. There will be no place in regional and rural Australia that is not covered. As much as it is covered in the cities, it will be covered in regional Australia.

Now, one would think that, having seen all the chaos and mayhem that has happened overseas, one would be saying, 'Australia, you should be proud.' But, no, those on the other side have to make it a political issue. They drag down the response and make out that it's a failure, whereas I just look at the facts. It's all this spin, which I see as a way of attacking our side rather than being constructive. That's the thing that people watching parliament on TV get really fed up with. They see all this nitpicking and these personality attacks, rather than constructive dialogue. People wonder why people have such a low opinion of politicians. It is because they see the behaviour—

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