Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday the Prime Minister said, 'Ultimately, everything is a state matter.' Was it the states or the PM who failed to vaccinate aged-care workers? Is it any wonder the New South Wales Premier is aghast at this performance, saying today:

… there was a process where aged care workers would get vaccinated first. We had tens of thousands of them in NSW who hadn't been offered the vaccine. We're playing catch-up now.

Isn't Premier Berejiklian right?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Health and Aged Care may wish to add to this answer. The vaccination rate for aged-care workers now is 78.8 per cent on first dose and 56.7 per cent on second dose. Importantly, for aged-care residents the first-dose vaccination rate is 89 per cent and the second-dose vaccination rate is 84.4 per cent. We know that that is the principal reason why we have seen during the course of the outbreak in New South Wales such a significant fall in fatality rates compared to what we saw with similar cases in Victoria during the outbreak last year. That has been an extraordinary effort by many, including the vaccination program led by Lieutenant General Frewen and by Professor Murphy prior to that, and, in addition to that, the great work being done by the New South Wales government in partnership with the federal government. I thank them for that.

We've been continuing to work on what is a very difficult program in that sector, but we do know the decision taken by our government to ensure that we focused first and absolutely on getting to every single residential aged-care facility in this country and being able to offer two doses of vaccination has saved hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of lives. That is ultimately the outcome that this is all about—saving lives, saving livelihoods. That is what our program has been doing. More than 30,000 lives have been saved in this country because of the responses that the government, together with our partners around the country, have been putting in place now for these many months, more than 18 months, and not only just the 30,000 more lives that have been saved but the million jobs, the million Australians who are back in jobs and can look forward to a future with confidence because they've been living in a country whose COVID response has done both of those things—saving lives and saving livelihoods.

Mr Speaker, I need to add to an earlier answer. I referred to Senator Kitching as being a senator for New South Wales.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You did.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

She is, as we all know, a senator from Victoria, and that's the truth, just like she said.

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, no, the Prime Minister will—

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I was just adding.

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To add to the Prime Minister's answer, 225,000 aged-care workers have now had vaccinations. What we've seen is that the pledge to put in place mandatory orders has had a major impact. We know that access has been available, but what we've seen over the last seven weeks is 13,000; 11,000; 14,000; 13,000; 18,000; 21,000; and 16,000 workers now having taken up a vaccination. I welcome that fact that, last week, New South Wales added a public health order to this. All of those elements have helped to lift those rates. Unfortunately, it has been necessary to mandate. The access has been there, but the uptake is now there. We welcome it. It's saving lives and protecting lives. (Time expired)