Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Seriously, I don't know where you guys live, because it's certainly not in Australia with the rest of us. It's just extraordinary, this constant talking-down that we see of Australia's efforts around the entire COVID pandemic. We know that you don't understand the basic economics of the pandemic and all the programs we put in place to ensure Australians were able to stay connected to their employers. We've now got less unemployment than we had pre the pandemic. And that was all at a time when, over there, those naysayers were all, 'Don't end JobKeeper; the economy's going to fall off the cliff.' Guess what? It keeps getting better. And that's because of the leadership of the Morrison government, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

When we come to the vaccine rollout, the 20/20 'hindsight vision' displayed by those opposite is breathtaking. I'm just so impressed by how you are all, apparently, expert epidemiologists and knew clearly before the actual experts what was going to happen with regard to the vaccines! In fact, in last March who would have thought we'd have a vaccine by this stage? This has been the most incredible rollout—and the efforts by science and research to ensure that we could move towards a vaccine at all. In Australia we have four vaccines lined up and, by the time we get to October, there will be two million doses per week of the Pfizer.

I had my first Pfizer jab, in New South Wales—because Gladys Berejiklian continues to demonstrate a gold standard in every single way. I am not in the over-50 category. I would like that on the record! Maybe I should say it again: I qualified for the Pfizer, and the Pfizer was for ages 40 to 49. You don't feel smug about it anymore now that it goes up to 59, but back then in New South Wales it was the 40- to 49-year-olds who were entitled to the Pfizer. I've had the first jab and I'm looking forward to my second jab next week. That would make me just one of 140,000 Australians who received a dose of the vaccine, because that's how many received it yesterday. And, if today we see another 140,000 Australians receive a dose of the vaccine, that will put us at seven million vaccine doses that have been delivered.

We hear from over there so much misinformation, and it is absolutely so dangerous to continue to propagate these lies and this deceit to the Australian people. It is creating more fear and uncertainty, and you should be ashamed. The reality is that the vaccine is not available to under-16s. So, when we talk about the percentage of the population, let's remove the under-16s, shall we? And most states are making it available to only the over-50s. So we need to remove everyone under 16. Except in New South Wales and, I think, a couple of other places that are allowing those in their 40s—