Mr FOLEY (Albert Park—Minister for Health, Minister for Ambulance Services, Minister for Equality) (14:47): As it happens, I too would like to rise to pass a few comments on the great work being done by our frontline healthcare workers in their efforts to go about the vaccination of our community. I want to thank all of those people involved in those efforts, drawn overwhelmingly from our healthcare services, and I want to acknowledge the fact that overwhelmingly those people, as they are frontline healthcare workers themselves, have been vaccinated to extraordinarily high levels. I want to acknowledge, as the honourable minister for disability did yesterday, the fact that our public aged-care workers have exceeded the industry standards when it comes to their now requirement to be vaccinated. I want to acknowledge that private residential aged-care staff have also now come on board in increasing numbers for vaccinations. I want to acknowledge that our Ambulance Victoria staff are up at around 86 per cent of their vaccination target. I want to acknowledge that all of our healthcare workers have taken extraordinary steps to keep themselves safe. The least the Victorian community can do in ensuring that we play our part of that bargain is to come forward as soon as possible to get your vaccination from one of those 55 state-run hubs, or increasingly the number of GPs, pharmacists and other locations, to make sure that you do your part in helping those healthcare workers achieve the goal of a safe sustainable reopening by being protected as far as you can be by your vaccination program.
I will use this opportunity to call on the federal government and insist that we at least get our fair and proportionate share of vaccines from our commonwealth government.