Vince Connelly (Stirling, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Coronavirus has challenged every person, every family and every business here in Australia and right round the world. We can all be proud in Australia of the way that we have demonstrated our true Australian spirit in fighting and in continuing to fight this virus. We have remained cool and calm under pressure throughout this crisis. That has enabled us to make sensible forward-looking decisions. Importantly, early in the piece we declared this a pandemic, even before the World Health Organization. We were able to institute sensible, targeted and time framed economic supports to keep Australian businesses in business and keep Australians in jobs.

One of the critical investments that has been made by the Morrison government has been in vaccines. We have now secured more than 150 million doses of vaccines and this will help enable us to return to our new normal. In fact, every day from here forward, as the PM commented this morning, will become more normal. Phase 1a of the rollout of the vaccines will see workers in health care and aged care, those caring for people with disability, and frontline workers in health, at our borders and in quarantine becoming vaccinated. Subsequent phases will see the elderly and those working in other higher risk professions, like police, defence, fire, emergency services and meat processing, being vaccinated. The final phase will see vaccination of the remaining adult population here in Australia. It's also a great outcome that 50 million doses of AstraZeneca will be produced right here in Australia.

Of course, during this we look, as we always do, to our Pacific neighbours. We will be providing assistance in the form of vaccination doses to our Pacific island neighbours. That's because we understand that Australia can only succeed where we exist in a safe, stable and secure environment along with our regional partners. Indeed, yesterday, 22 February, the start of the rollout of vaccination, saw us embarking on one of the biggest logistical exercises in our nation's history. I'm sure we will all remember these days, including that vision of the very first doses of the Pfizer vaccine touching down at Sydney airport.

So, as we embark on this phase of recovery and as we roll out the vaccines across the nation, there's one important overriding message that I want to send to my constituents in Stirling and that everyone in this place wants to send right across the country, and that is: let's keep up that great Australian spirit of mateship; let's get this vaccine and look after each other.