Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last Thursday, I received my first dose of the AstraZeneca vaccine. The sore arm has gone, four days later, and I can report no side effects. I say this in this place because I want a message to go to my community. There is only one way out of this, and that is through the vaccination program. What I want to say to my community is please ignore the mixed messaging coming from those opposite. Please ignore the mixed messages; we need to get vaccinated. The fact of the matter is that right now in Australia only one per cent of adults are fully vaccinated—only one per cent—after this government promised four million people would be vaccinated by March. Now we're hearing 'maybe by Christmas'. Please!

In my electorate, we took it hard. We had lots and lots of community transmission during the worst of it in Victoria and we cannot afford to go through that again. We cannot afford to lose aged people in our aged-care centres again. Like the member for Macnamara, I'd like to pause to say that we have two cases again in Victoria today. There is only one way through this, and we have to work around an incompetent federal government to get it done, people. So go out and get vaccinated as soon as you're eligible. I hear that in Melbourne under-50s can get AstraZeneca. I say to the young people in my community: go and get it.