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

My question is to the best Minister for Health and Aged Care. Will the minister please outline to the House how our healthcare heroes have worked tirelessly to protect Australians throughout the COVID-19 pandemic?

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

I want to thank the best member for Chisholm! She has supported the pharmacists and the GPs, the healthcare heroes, that have assisted Australia through this vaccination program. General practices, such as SIA medical centres in Burwood and Box Hill in her electorate, have helped achieve a number of 39.4 million vaccinations in Australia. Those vaccinations have given Australia one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world and they have given us one of the lowest rates of loss of life in the world and one of the strongest economic recoveries in the world. We owe that to our healthcare heroes, our doctors and nurses, and to our pharmacists, who have given over 2.3 million vaccinations. We also owe an enormous debt of gratitude to our pathologists and our pathology collectors. They have delivered over 48 million COVID tests.

So the structures we put in place of borders, testing, tracing, distancing and vaccination have protected Australians. What we see is a nation, when you look at the rest of the world, which has saved 30,000 lives by comparison with the OECD and 45,000 lives by comparison with the agony suffered by our great friends the United States and the United Kingdom. As a result of that, Australians have been safer and Australians have been protected. There's always more work to do, but it's our healthcare heroes who have been on the front line.

Just overnight, there were another 700,000 cases of COVID-19 worldwide. There were over 7,800 lives lost worldwide. These global figures put it into comparison. Although we have had great challenges in this nation—there has been loss and suffering, and we must acknowledge that—what we have experienced as a nation is vastly different to almost anything else experienced by most of the rest of the world. Had we contemplated this situation 18 months ago, we would say that we have been blessed by comparison with what the rest of the world has faced.

Andrew Wallace (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Chifley is warned.

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

The people whom I most want to thank and acknowledge are our doctors and our nurses, our pathologists, our pharmacists, our healthcare assistants, our aged-care workers, our aged-care nurses—all of our healthcare workers. They've kept Australians safe. We owe them our thanks and we honour them.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I join with the health minister in honouring those health workers who've kept us safe.