Gladys Liu (Chisholm, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Tonight, Melbourne's lockdown will end, owing to the efforts of our citizens, like those in my community of Chisholm, to roll up their sleeves and get vaccinated. Will the Prime Minister please inform the House of how the national plan is working to reopen Melbourne and the rest of Australia so we can safely live with the virus and recover from the pandemic?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Chisholm for her question and for being here in this chamber. As she knows, it is an important day for Victoria and particularly for Melbourne. Victoria has reached a 70.51 per cent rate of double-dose vaccination. That is an extraordinary achievement, and I indeed join with the Leader of the Opposition in thanking all those who've played such a critical role, particularly our health workers but also our mental health workers and all those who've played such a critical role in ensuring that we could achieve that rate. In Victoria the single-dose rate is now approaching 90 per cent, and in the members' own electorate these figures are reflected in her own local government area. In Victoria, if they were a country, they would have a single-dose vaccination rate greater than that of Finland, the Netherlands, France or the United Kingdom and a double-dose rate higher than that of the United States. This is an extraordinary achievement for the people of Victoria, under the national plan.

I will never forget the incredible role played by the member for Chisholm and the Chinese-Australian community at the outset of the pandemic. When I look back to February 2020, as people were returning from China, I was with the member for Chisholm in Box Hill at the time, and they were observing social distancing, they were wearing masks, they were taking precautions. I believe that that community in Box Hill played a central role in saving thousands and thousands and thousands of lives here in Australia, and I commend the member for Chisholm for her leadership in that community, which has taken us forward. So, I thank all those who've been involved.

Victoria has had the longest, hardest and most difficult road through this pandemic. They have endured more lockdowns than any other part of the country and they have endured and they have shown great character and great patience. So tonight at 11:59, it will indeed be a time in Victoria for them to truly celebrate what they have been able to achieve as they claim their lives back through these higher rates of vaccination with borders coming down and ensuring children are going back to school, that people are going back to work, that families are being reconnected and that businesses are being back in business.

Our government has stood by those Victorians, with some 10.8 million vaccines delivered in Victoria and 685,000 brought forward; and $51 billion worth of economic supports—higher per capita support to Victoria than any other state or territory in the Commonwealth—and some $6 billion and more just in the most recent delta outbreak. Victoria is opening safely, it will stay safely open under the national plan. Victoria is opening safety and it will safely open under the national plan.