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

[by video link] It must be another day ending in Y because Senator Watt is seeking to peddle mistruths in the chamber. That is not at all what the Prime Minister has done or said. Indeed, I can really think of only two Queenslanders who stand out in terms of being unhelpful with the vaccine rollout. That would be the Premier and the chief health officer, both of whom seemed to do their utmost to dent confidence in it early on. I'm thrilled to note that Queenslanders have overcome those theatrics from their leaders and that Queenslanders are actually responding in strong numbers to the vaccine rollout, as indeed are all Australians. That's the crucial thing. The job is getting done and Australians are turning out in record numbers. More than 330,000 did so yesterday. It's driving our country's rate of people getting vaccinated faster on a per capita basis than the US or the UK ever achieved, and we would encourage Australians to do so. We completely reject the type of negativity we get from Senator Watt.