Matt O'Sullivan (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I've been listening carefully to the contributions on the motion to take note at this time of day from Senator Ayres and Senator Watt, speaking about the government's response to the COVID pandemic. Now, I'm very proud of the Morrison government's response to the COVID pandemic. I'm very proud of Australia's response to the COVID pandemic. It must be really difficult for Labor senators to have to come in here and trot out these lines. They live in a parallel universe because their view of what Australia has done is far more pessimistic than the reality. It's actually not connected to reality at all. They're living in some sort of alternative universe here, because Australia has actually tackled and dealt with the pandemic better than practically anywhere else in the world. In fact, if we had just the average death rate from COVID of any OECD country, then over 30,000 Australians would have died in the COVID pandemic. We're not anywhere near that. Way less than 2,000, I believe, is the number of people who have succumbed to COVID since the outbreak began here.

Australia has one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world. I don't know if you've seen that as well, Labor senators: we have one of the highest rates of vaccination in the world. I mean, this is phenomenal—we've got over 85 per cent double-dosed vaccination of people aged over 16 in Australia right now. And it's growing every day. This is good news. But you won't hear anyone on that side of the chamber celebrate the success that we as Australians, collectively, have achieved. You're not going to hear that, Madam Deputy President, because what do they do? They come in here—and it's really interesting, actually—