Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I said yesterday it was like groundhog day, and here we go again. We know where this vaccine hesitancy is coming from, and it's certainly got nothing to do with supply. We know that there is supply throughout Australia for any Australian who wants it. We know that, day after day, including yesterday, the day before and the day before that, we have seen record days of vaccinations occurring. Over a quarter of a million Australians are being vaccinated every single day. There is no supply issue.

But what we do know, when we look across some of the states, is that there's vaccine hesitancy. There's brand shopping. Why would that be, considering that the ATAGI advice is now that all of the vaccines—whatever vaccine you can access—are equally effective, equally safe and, equally, hundreds of thousands of times less likely to injure and kill you than COVID?

Those opposite continue to persist with this absolute hyperbole around supply, but really what they're talking about is: 'We don't want to talk about AstraZeneca. We don't want to support Australian jobs. We don't want to support Australian manufacturing. We want to continue a fear and a smear campaign around vaccine brands.' It is just ludicrous! The current opposition leader can barely bring himself to even say the name. The fact is that he then raced out, as quickly as possible, to find a candidate for the seat of Higgins who has been actively out there suggesting people not get the AstraZeneca! This is against all health advice.

Thank goodness we have sensible commentators, like Dr Nick Coatsworth, who are encouraging Australians to get vaccinated and who know that the best vaccine for you is the one that is available. We are seeing Australians out in record numbers, getting their vaccination and ensuring that Australia can open up as soon as possible but also keeping Australians safe.

As we enter into lockdown here in Canberra, I would like to acknowledge my colleagues who have all stayed put today, who understand that they need to be here to support the Canberrans as they go through this but also to ensure that parliament is able to continue to conduct itself as best as possible. But, as we stay here in Canberra and enter this lockdown, we know that those in Canberra and the ACT have done extremely well when it comes to their vaccination rates. In fact, they are getting very close to 30 per cent at full vaccination, and over 50 per cent have had one dose. But even more impressive are the vaccination rates in those vulnerable cohorts: we are looking at numbers in the 80 and 90 per cent range. So I think there can be some confidence, as the ACT goes into a seven-day sharp lockdown, because of the compliance that we are likely to see, because of the way that people will conduct themselves over the next seven days and because of the fact that the contact tracers are already working hard with the gentleman who has been affected to ensure that close contacts are identified as soon as possible. But the fact that there are significantly higher vaccination rates within the ACT means a significantly reduced chance of people contracting the virus and infecting others with it and it means people are significantly less likely to get majorly ill or find themselves in hospital or, worse still, on a ventilator or dying from the virus. We need to keep encouraging vaccination—we need to keep encouraging people to get out there.

I am intrigued as to whether or not we will start to see another fear campaign—because we know you guys just can't stay away from them—and whether or not we're going to start to see a move away from the Pfizer and whether you're going to start encouraging people to just really be looking at the Moderna. We're spoilt for choice. You guys aren't going to know which way to go—how to scare Australians!

Disgracefully, today, on Capital Hill on ABC, when I was there with Senator McAllister after half past one this afternoon, there Senator McAllister was, again spreading more information about a lack of supply.

It is absolutely shameful behaviour. It is time that it stopped. It is time that you started to get behind Australians, the Australian economy, to ensure that we can open up as soon as possible, and that is through vaccinations. It's not through brand shopping and it's not through creating vaccine hesitancy. It's through real information, factual information, not scare campaigns and not being out there confusing Australians who are trying to do the right thing.