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

I, too, would like to warmly welcome back Senator Molan. It is wonderful to see him back in this chamber and, indeed, to see him looking so well. Congratulations on your battle, Jim.

Australians have been responding magnificently to the call to get vaccinated, as Senator Molan said. More than 32.6 million vaccines have been administered across Australia. Some 84.8 per cent of those over the age of 16 have received their first dose of a vaccine, and 68.3 per cent across the nation have received their second dose, being fully vaccinated. This comes when Australia's comparison in the saving of lives to the rest of the world remains an incredibly strong one. We remain the nation amongst the 38 OECD countries to have the second-lowest incidence of COVID cases per capita. We're in a nation where we have seen far fewer deaths. In fact, if you look at the UK or the USA, they've seen some 40 times the number of deaths per capita that have occurred in Australia from COVID-19. By avoiding the OECD averages in terms of COVID-19 deaths, we've seen some 30,000-plus Australian lives saved and the time for millions of Australians—the vast majority of Australians now—to turn out and to get vaccinated, enabling us to see those states who have been battling lockdowns, such as Victoria, New South Wales and here in the ACT, begin the steps of reopening and other states begin the steps of looking at how they transition to the next stages of a more vaccinated population.

I welcome the news from the Queensland government, just prior to question time, indicating that the vaccination targets set out in the national plan our Prime Minister released, informed by the Doherty institute modelling, will see Queensland open its borders at those 70 and 80 per cent thresholds. That is welcome news and a sign of the progress being achieved.