Slade Brockman (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I can't help but start by once again calling out the inane comment from senators opposite—they keep using it—that the Prime Minister and the government only had two jobs. What nonsense is this? It shows a complete lack of understanding, a complete lack of insight into what it actually takes to govern this country—particularly in a pandemic.

We can go through the questions that were asked today, but I'm going to stay on the vaccine rollout because there are some key points that Australians do need to understand about the vaccine rollout—in particular, how the vaccine rollout has ramped up significantly over the past few months. In March of this year, 770,000 vaccines were distributed into people; April, 1.4 million; May, 2.1 million; June, 3.4 million; July, 4.5 million. We are now regularly hitting over a million doses of vaccine administered to Australians each and every week. In the last seven days, it was 1.2 million. The total doses administered so far is 12.5 million. I have that written down here, but I think we are actually up to about 12.8 million as of today. Every Australian who hears those figures knows that the vaccine rollout has ramped up significantly over the past few months to the point where in July, as I said, 4.5 million doses were delivered to Australians across this country.

Do we need to see those rates continue? Absolutely. But those rates will mean that all those Australians who want a vaccine will be able to get one. There have been 12.5 million doses administered and we're up to a million doses a week. You don't have to be a rocket scientist to realise that this will get the job done.

Have there been setbacks? Absolutely. The Prime Minister has been absolutely open about this. I myself was hit with one of the changes of advice from ATAGI. I was booked for my AstraZeneca vaccine. I'm going to reveal my age here, which is a bit sad. I don't like doing that.

Senator Wong interjecting—

I know, but nobody looks at the internet, Senator Wong! I was booked for the AstraZeneca vaccine and then that unfortunately wasn't possible because of the changed ATAGI rule. I was then rebooked for the Pfizer vaccine, which I have now had. In the long run, I will actually be fully vaccinated with the Pfizer vaccine before I would have been with the AstraZeneca vaccine due to the different times between the first and second doses of those two options.

They are both very good vaccines. They're very efficacious and offer a lot of protection to the people of Australia. As I have done before, and as I will continue to do, I urge everyone to get vaccinated, particularly my fellow Western Australians. We are sadly a little bit behind on the leaderboard in the rollout. We are a little bit behind in the progress of the vaccination rollout in Western Australia. I would urge all my fellow Western Australian citizens to get their names on those lists and register for their vaccination to enable all of us as we move through the road map over the next few months to have as much protection for ourselves, our loved ones and the communities in which we live as humanly possible.

We also have to remember as we continue this vaccination rollout that the path taken by the Australian government, with the absolute cooperation of the Australian people, has saved a large number of lives. Something like 30,000 lives have been saved by taking the path we have. Obviously it's difficult in the current environment with the outbreak of the delta variant, and we are again facing these challenges. But I know that the Australian people will step up to the mark and do what is required to be done over these next few difficult weeks and months ahead. Above all, I know that they will register and that they are registering for those vaccines that are available.