David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party, Minister Assisting the Minister for Trade and Investment) Share this | Hansard source

I'd like to thank the member for Wentworth for his question and acknowledge his stellar career as a diplomat before looking after the people of Wentworth.

The Morrison-Joyce government stepped up immediately with the COVID-19 pandemic, supporting vaccine rollout and other health support across the Asia-Pacific. There has been $750 million worth of direct support into the Pacific and Asia, initially with PPE, health technology support and skills. But we also made a commitment of 60 million doses of vaccine to our Asia-Pacific neighbours. We have sourced 9.2 million doses of those vaccines from our own production, including 2.3 million doses across our Pacific family of nations. Over one million doses have been delivered in Fiji alone. There's also been support with distribution, training, planning support and AUSMATs where required, as well as facilitating national rollout programs. We've delivered marketing and 'sleeves up' information campaigns and engaged with community leaders in the islands of the Pacific, working with their companies and addressing vaccine hesitancy amongst many of the islands' health workers. There are a huge number of vaccines running around the Asia-Pacific courtesy of the COVAX facility, to which Australia has also contributed. In fact, there's $130 million worth of support to deliver 100 million vaccines across the Pacific.

So what I can say to our Pacific family of nations and friends is that we stand with them. We're keen to support them to get through this pandemic, get international trade, travel and tourism going again, and kickstart their regional economies again. So Australia stands ready to help. We have helped and will continue to help our Pacific family into the future.

See this speech in context