Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed, the Prime Minister has continued to be clear, in the other chamber and in comments in recent days, that he believes that Australian businesses—as he said in that interview on 25 August this year—should and do have the right, under existing laws, to make decisions in relation to the operation of their businesses themselves, that it is a matter for those businesses in terms of how they structure their arrangements in relation to customers and those entering their businesses and requirements around vaccination status.

We've been clear all along that it was not the government's intention to change the laws in relation to those arrangements, either to motivate or encourage more businesses to apply such provisions or to do so in a way that would prevent Australian businesses from doing so. We provided and published, as the Minister for Workplace Relations did through her agencies, the information to Australian businesses that provided them with the choice and the opportunity in how they respond. That's what the Prime Minister said in the interview on 25 August that Senator Gallagher referenced. That remains the case, and I believe it's what he has repeated in the House during the course of question time today.

But, crucially, the fact is that the vast majority of Australians have been vaccinated, with more then 85 per cent double-dosed, and that number continues to grow each and every day. That ensures that we can and should have confidence that we can, as the nation is doing, move through the stages of reopening under the national plan that was taken by the Prime Minister to national cabinet and that means that steps are taken to reopen progressively from particularly the 80 per cent double-vaccination level. That's what we've continued to do, and another important step was taken today in announcing the reopening of our international borders to visa categories— (Time expired)