Angie Bell (Moncrieff, Liberal National 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 Australia's vaccine program, including how booster vaccines will continue to protect Australian lives and livelihoods?

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

I want to thank the member for Moncrieff. I had the privilege of visiting with her the TriCare aged-care facility at Mermaid Beach, and, not that long before, they had had a positive case amongst one of their groundskeepers. All of the staff were doing their best, and all of the residents had been offered and given double vaccination, for everyone who was willing to receive it. That provided very important protection at a very important time.

That threat, which we've seen around the world, continues—again, over 400,000 cases in the last 24 hours worldwide of COVID-19 and sadly 8½ thousand lives lost. We are closing, very sadly, on more than five million lives lost worldwide officially, with the real rate likely to be far higher than that.

Against that background, one of the things that we have sought to do is to ensure that we have as many Australians vaccinated as possible. What we're seeing now is that across the country we are on the cusp of an 87½ per cent first dose and a 75 per cent second dose rate. That second dose rate is climbing, and the first dose rate is continuing to increase around the country. South Australia, as the Prime Minister has said, has passed the 80 per cent first dose rate today. Other states are closing on it, and already we have the ACT, New South Wales and Victoria with more than 90 per cent of first doses. Around the country in particular, we're now at 34.8 million doses around Australia, and what that means is that there were just over a million Australians to come forward to have their second doses to achieve that 80 per cent national mark. So we're on track and we're achieving that. And, as General Frewen said on Sunday, there's enough vaccine in the country to ensure that every person who seeks to be vaccinated, with a first or second, has that opportunity.

Today, the TGA has approved a booster shot, a third dose, for those once they've reached six months or more. That's available, and it will be available to all those who seek it. That vaccine is ready, and what that means is that we will have one of the highest vaccination rates in the world, one of the most recently vaccinated populations and be one of the earliest countries in the world to have a whole-of-population booster program, subject to the final advice by ATAGI.

All of these things are coming together to provide protection for Australians, to give us some of the highest protection in the world, but also to allow that road map. And that road map makes for, on 1 November, Australians being able to regain their freedoms and— (Time expired)