Fiona Martin (Reid, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

() (): [by video link] I want to start by thanking everyone in New South Wales for backing each other to save lives and livelihoods during this incredibly difficult time for our state and nation. In particular, I want to thank the good people of Reid who have followed health advice and who have already been vaccinated with a life-saving COVID-19 vaccine. As the Doherty Institute has made clear, whether you take AstraZeneca or Pfizer, you have a 90 per cent plus defence against mortality. It's your best defence and, truly, our only way forward. Every jab gives us hope. Hope to be together again with family and friends, hope to open our schools and sporting clubs, hope for our businesses to be back to normal, and hope to open our churches. At this very challenging time, we don't need misinformation. We don't need playing politics. We don't need encouraging of vaccine hesitancy, and we don't need comments like those by the member for Richmond yesterday when virtue-signalling to anti-vaxxers. Virtue signalling is dangerous. The facts speak for themselves. The Doherty Institute modelling reaffirms the comparable and outstanding protections by both Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines against hospitalisation, an ICU admission, and death. There are two safe, effective and free vaccines against COVID available. After speaking with their GPs, people from New South Wales should take the first one they can get. (Time expired)