Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

From the very start of the COVID-19 pandemic—indeed, before the World Health Organization declared it to be a pandemic—we have had frontline workers, be they those working on our borders or in our health systems, or, indeed, scientists and others who we rely upon for advice and information, doing an incredible job in the service of our country. It is the work of all of those people that has enabled governments across this country to achieve world-leading outcomes in terms of protecting Australians, keeping people safe, and to achieve outcomes in the saving of lives that are far in excess of the tragic, terrible circumstances we've seen in so much of the rest of the world. Many of those people are today engaged in activities across the country, in helping with testing, in helping with contact tracing or in helping with the vaccination rollout, and we extend our thanks to all of them for all that they are doing in helping the country. We send our thanks to the many essential workers in food, manufacturing, production, distribution and other industries who have been so important, as well as the other care sectors who have had to step up at times when restrictions have been imposed on so many other activities.

I want to acknowledge the many Australians continuing to turn out in record numbers to get vaccinated. We have seen, in the last 24 hours, 262,314 vaccines administered across Australia. This, once again, is another daily record. To administer those vaccines, we have many GP clinics opening late at night—additional hours—alongside increasing numbers of pharmacies putting in extra hours, alongside those working in state clinics or seeking to get into specialist centres, aged care, remote populations or otherwise. It's a huge effort by those individuals in the largest peacetime logistical undertaking our nation has seen. (Time expired)