Lucy Wicks (Robertson, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Minister for Health and Aged Care. Will the minister please update the House on the key milestones in the vaccine rollout and how these are continuing to keep Australian lives and livelihoods safe?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Robertson and note for the benefit of the House that Australians have now passed the 70 per cent double dose vaccination rate—to be precise 70.007 per cent. Our first dose rate as a nation is 85.5 per cent. In Robertson, it's over 80 per cent for double dose and an extraordinary 95 per cent for those who have already had their first dose.

Around the nation, Australians have stepped forward and are stepping forward to protect themselves and their families, their friends, their communities and their country, and we thank them and we honour them. They are doing that in record numbers. We've seen 277,000 come forward in the last 24 hours. We have now passed the 33 million mark for Australians who have been vaccinated. We have passed the million mark for those who are between 12 and 15 who have had either first or second doses—60 per cent and 25 per cent respectively for first and second doses for those young Australians who are doing their bit to protect the country. When we look around the states and territories, we see here in the ACT an extraordinary 98.1 per cent; New South Wales at over 92 per cent; Victoria is on the cusp of joining that 90 per cent club, at just over 89 per cent; Tasmania is on its way to 90 per cent; and all other four jurisdictions, South Australia, the NT, Queensland and WA, are in the 70 per cent to 80 per cent bracket—and those numbers are increasing every day.

All of this means that in a world that is seeing over 400,000 cases a day, with 7,500 lives lost in the last 24 hours, Australians are protecting themselves and they are protecting others. We couldn't have done this without the extraordinary work of our nurses, our doctors, our pathologists, whether public or private, and everybody who has been assisting in the process of this vaccine rollout. It is about saving lives and it's about protecting lives. We see with regard to hospitalisations, serious illness and loss of life that the vaccines are protecting people.

We are doing this as we said we would do, but we are doing it with record numbers. I want to thank every Australian that has come forward and I continue to urge those who are yet to have a first dose and those who are due to have their second dose to come forward and be vaccinated.