Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for Government Services) Share this | Hansard source

First of all, I would totally reject the assertions from Senator Patrick. That is simply not the case. Let me explain why. The national plan our government has developed and agreed to is our pathway to living with this virus. That is our goal—to live with this virus, not to live in fear of it. The government—and in fact all ministers in this place—are working in our various areas with states and territories, including on this matter, and we are looking for a pathway forward. Vaccination is clearly the key to keeping Australians safe and to getting our lives back in a COVID world. Medicare's longstanding and reliable system underpins the Australian Immunisation Register, otherwise called AIR, which plays a central role today in recording COVID-19 vaccinations. The AIR was established in 1996 and has a longstanding and very trusted reputation and history. Many parents are familiar with its record keeping and proof of childhood immunisations. It's only logical that this database is used to capture COVID-19 vaccinations in a secure, reliable and trusted way. Privacy and security considerations are of course among the top priorities for any digital solution the government develops, and this digital certificate is absolutely no exception. Contemporary cybersecurity is in place to protect people's personal information, and COVID-19 digital certificates do have features to safeguard against fraudulent activity, consistent with all other official government documents such as birth certificates and citizenship certificates. We are, however, continually evolving our security technology to meet contemporary and emerging threats, and we are very confident in the robust monitoring and fraud detection mechanisms in place to protect Medicare details. Since mandating the recording of COVID-19 vaccinations on the AIR, the Commonwealth has further boosted proof-of-vaccination certificate security measures, and the government continues to do so. (Time expired)