Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services) Share this | Hansard source

I thank Senator Lambie for the question. I did miss a piece, which was a quote from the Premier, Mr Gutwein. I would like to assure all Australians that the work that we've been doing since the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic has been to support Australians and to protect Australians as we work our way through the impacts of the pandemic. That includes for the health system, and one of the first things that we put in place was the private hospitals agreement, which allowed us to have access to the private hospital system should we need it to support the public health system to cope with the pandemic. In the period of the pandemic so far, the Australian government has provided over $6.6 billion in funding for the direct costs of the diagnosis and treatment of COVID-19 and the broader public health costs for contact tracing, outbreak management and vaccination. We continue to support Australians with respect to the management of COVID and also to the maintaining of their health. The National Partnership on COVID-19 Response is in place until 30 June 2022. It was agreed by all jurisdictions, and the Commonwealth is covering 50 per cent of the additional costs incurred by state and territory public health and hospital systems in responding to COVID-19 outbreaks. This funding is demand driven, and there is no cap on funding.

In the context of reopening, all states have indicated that they have adequate capacity to meet demand based on the Doherty modelling and supplemented by their own modelling, so when we get through the 70 and 80 per cent fully vaccinated rates as the basis for reopening, based on the Doherty modelling. Those are the discussions that we are having with the states and the territories.