Ms Catherine King (Ballarat, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With Victoria opening up and life beginning to return to our streets and neighbourhoods, I want to take this opportunity to acknowledge the tireless work and dedication of our frontline workers across my community. For two years now, our healthcare workers have continued to put the needs of our community first. They've done so, often covered head to toe in uncomfortable PPE. They've done so through multiple waves of outbreaks. They've done so while dealing with families distressed at not being able to visit loved ones in hospital and aged care. They've done so even during times when they've had to isolate from their own families. They did so even before vaccines were available, and they've done so when, like all of us, they've been personally struggling with lockdowns, home schooling and the uncertainty of this global pandemic. We owe them a debt of gratitude that we cannot repay. To the doctors, nurses and other workers across my community, we say thank you. To the GPs, pharmacists, allied healthcare workers, admin staff and hospital cleaners, we say thank you. To the paramedics, vaccination centre staff and healthcare students who took on new responsibilities, I say thank you. I know that, as we open and we experience what living with COVID means, many of you are anxious about what is to come, but I also know that you are ready and that our community is in safe hands.

I want to particularly acknowledge the work of the Grampians Public Health Unit. If the pandemic is to leave us with anything, the fact that we now have a highly experienced and dedicated public health unit protecting and improving the health of our population is cause for thanks. We are incredibly fortunate that Associate Professor Rosemary Aldrich took the decision several years ago to move to Ballarat. She has spent her life working in public health. She's been assisted by an incredible team, including people like Dr Rob Grenfell, also a public health specialist. It is this team that's been on the front line of dealing with local outbreaks in our community and keeping us prepared. In the collaboration between the Grampians Public Health Unit and the already well-established emergency management responses of the councils of the City of Ballarat and of Hepburn, Moorabool and Golden Plains shires and all of the partners from VicPol and the Primary Health Network, along with our individual GPs and our network of pharmacies, they have shown terrific leadership.

Across our community, people like our supermarket and delivery workers have also kept our cupboards and fridges full. They've continued to go to work, and they did so even before the protection of vaccination. They've been dealing with stressed and frustrated customers. To the cleaners who've attended to exposure sides at the risk of themselves and their families, and to the teachers and childcare workers who continue to support and encourage our children, including my own, I say: we cannot thank you enough. To all of the essential workers in my electorate who've had to continue to attend their workplaces at their own risk to support the community, we say thank you. I could not have been prouder of our community and the way in which they've banded together over the past two years. It's been an extraordinary two years. We've shown kindness and support to one another. We've been shopping more locally than ever before. We've been supporting our local restaurants, with their innovations in keeping us fed.

And, of course, the vaccination rate in our community is fantastic. Despite the early lack of doses, over 95 per cent of the eligible population have now had a first dose, and around 79 per cent of those over the age of 15 are now double dosed in our community. The uptake by the 12- to 16-year-old age groups in a matter of weeks has been terrific.

The people of Ballarat are prepared, and we are ready to live with COVID-19 in the community, to enjoy an economic recovery in the region and to be reunited with family and friends from metro Melbourne. We know that there is a road ahead still to travel. We will need to continue to support our frontline workers as they deal with an increase in COVID cases, but I am optimistic that, with the uptake of the vaccines, the workers have already been supported by the community to make their work and lives much easier.

I would also like to acknowledge all of the hospitality, events, live performance, travel and tourism providers and any other businesses that found overnight that they could not continue operating in the fashion that they had been doing for years. Many of you had to pivot and learn new ways of doing things.

While we're not out yet and there will be more challenges, I'm optimistic that the lessons of the pandemic will last. The strength we've demonstrated in our community, the resilience of our kids, the leadership of and the collaboration between our institutions and the compassion we've shown for those who the pandemic has left so vulnerable—all will hold us in good stead in the days and months ahead. We say: thank you, Ballarat.