Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to address the topic at hand this afternoon in the Senate, which is on the question of vaccines and the question of the management of this pandemic. It has been said that the opposition really has played their role, which we would expect, during this past 18 months that they have been in opposition—interested in politics and not interested in trying to help the Australian nation deal with an enormous economic and health shock. So, if people want to talk about what really matters when the books are written, people will look at this period and they will say that there was a relatively low level of infection, there were fewer deaths than any other comparable nation and the vaccination rollout was slower than it may have needed to be but it picked up pace pretty quickly.

The pace of the vaccination rollout right now in my home state of New South Wales—and you want to talk about New South Wales—is pretty much the fastest in the world. It's the fastest that anyone has ever seen. We're now at the stage today, having hit six million doses in my home state—which is almost 60 per cent of people having had one dose—of being 15 points ahead of some of the other states in Australia. New South Wales will be the first to real freedom. Other states can live behind their COVID curtain and try and pretend they're in some kind of hermit kingdom, but New South Wales, because of the very fast rollout in combination with Commonwealth and state government cooperation, will be the first to real freedom. People in my state will be the first people in this country to genuinely live with COVID. And that is what we have to do: we have to live with this.

Now I come to this issue that was raised in question time, where it was asserted that there were huge waiting lists for people to get vaccines in south-west Sydney. In the course of the last hour, helpfully, I've been able to check a few facts. I have spoken to a few pharmacists I know in south-west Sydney, and you can walk into a pharmacy in Bexley or Kingsgrove and you can get a shot straightaway. Labor want to pick up on the politics, because they're not interested in health outcomes. They are interested in politics—and that is their role, so we can't begrudge them that.

But the point is that we are on the way to achieving our plan's targets. We're going to get to 70 per cent. We are going to get to 80 per cent. It is going to happen. You can already see, with over 80 per cent of older Australians in some cases having already received their first dose, that this is going to happen. In a couple of months, we're going to be there. And our economic figures will still be very strong, based on all of the relevant data we have up to the moment. People will look at this period and say, 'It was a huge economic shock, it was a huge health scare, but, you know what, it was run pretty well, because few people died, there was a low level of infection and the vaccine rollout was very fast, in the end.'

Some of the more sensitive issues here are around minorities, and people want to talk about the Indigenous communities. Of course people are concerned about Indigenous communities, and far-flung and remote communities—and there are some of those in New South Wales, as there are in Western Australia. It has been very important to keep the virus out of these communities, and, overall, that has largely happened. Yes, there has been some infection, in towns like Burke and Brewarrina and Coonamble—towns that I've visited in my role as a senator—and, yes, it is clear that the facilities in those towns are not flash, and these are the last places we want to see the virus. The virus having been in some of these communities, we do need now to work closely with the elders, as is happening, to ensure that vaccines go into the arms of those Indigenous people. We do need, I think, to reflect on some of the past values here in Indigenous policy in Australia, where there's been far too much paternalism and far too much 'doing to', rather than 'doing with'—and 'doing with' is what has happened across Australia during this pandemic. The vaccination rollout has been done in deep consultation with Indigenous communities. We need to get those vaccines into arms in western and south-western New South Wales. That is happening and that is now urgent.

I think we will look back on this period as one of great concern. There has been a big price paid by small-business people and by schoolkids. But, ultimately, we are on track. This will be over in a couple of months, and we can open up. (Time expired)