David Van (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I love MPIs, especially the ones we get from Labor. They make me laugh; they really do. It's like being given a dorothy dixer—although, with Senator Ayres's one today, the English, if you could call it that, took a bit of deciphering before I could understand it. But thank you, Senator Ayres, for a chance to talk on this.

Just so everyone's aware, including Senator Ayres and Senator Urquhart, the Doherty modelling has been released. I have it here and will table it, if you like. It's available on the Doherty institute's website. It's available on the government website. The one I have was revised on 10 August. I'm not sure if there's been another one since then, but 10 August seems pretty up to date. And it does talk about the effects on the health system. It talks about when we can open up safely. And, as we've seen in New South Wales and as we will see, finally, on Thursday in Victoria, vaccines are bringing down cases and are working. The national plan that was brought about on the back of the Doherty modelling is working, and we're seeing that in Victoria and New South Wales. In New South Wales, there were only 273 new cases today. In Victoria, my home state, fingers crossed it is working and it's coming down, with 1,749 cases today.

What we have seen is lockdowns in Victoria, the jurisdiction that's been locked down the longest in the whole world. The lockdowns don't work. Vaccines do. And vaccines are being rolled out. To give the Prime Minister his credit—I have his media release here from 21 February 2021, in which he said, 'The Australian government has a comprehensive plan to offer COVID-19 vaccines to all Australians by the end of October 2021'—it looks very much as though we're going to hit that date.

Those opposite should be congratulating us, but they're having a whinge about something that already exists and that they don't know anything about. Their states aren't fixing their hospital systems. The Victorian government produced its own modelling, from the Burnet Institute, which says that the significant easing of restrictions at 80 per cent will lead to 63 per cent of simulations exceeding 2,500 hospital beds. Premier Andrews last year promised us 4,000 beds. Even on the back of his own modelling, he has failed to deliver those beds. So, if any hospital system is at risk, it's the Victorian one, by the Premier's own modelling, that's damned by this.

It also says, 'High rates of symptomatic testing among people who are vaccinated could reduce the impact on the health system.' I found this incredibly interesting, because, day after day, for the whole 18 months, the Victorian testing system has lagged behind those of other states. Even just today in New South Wales, to pull out one—and we know that the testing rates in New South Wales have dropped because there are so few cases—there were over 90,000 tests in the last 24 hours. There were only 68,000 in Victoria, yet we've got more than five times the number of cases.

Those opposite should stop crying out and saying, 'We need more.' The states need to be doing more—because guess what? The Commonwealth government has already gone to them and said, 'We will invest $131.4 billion in demand driven public hospital funding to improve health outcomes for all Australians.' This is in addition to over $8 billion of health investment by the Commonwealth during the COVID-19 response. This government is doing everything it needs to do, and Australians can see that. Australians see every day how well we're responding to this pandemic. We have some of the lowest numbers of deaths in the world and we're heading towards some of the highest vaccination rates in the world, yet those opposite want to pick at little things and raise badly worded MPIs that just waste the Senate's time. Come on, guys. Get with Team Australia—that's what you're here for. We're nearly there. Roll up your sleeves.