Prime Minister
Prime Minister Scott Morrison: Can I start by saying thank you very much to Dr Khorshid for your great leadership with the AMA and all the GPs across the country, more than 4,000 of them now, and that number is growing, actively involved, including the GPs who have joined us here today. Mary, Simon and Mariam, thank you so much for joining us here today, looking forward to the discussions we are going to have.
We’ve got some challenges to deal with so it will be a good opportunity today for me to hear the feedback on how that programme with GPs is working on the ground here in Western Australia. The Premier and I had a good opportunity to discuss that yesterday as well.
In Western Australia, there are always special circumstances, and here COVID has been heavily suppressed for a long time and so encouraging people to take their vaccinations, particularly elderly Australians. And while there has been great success here in Western Australia in suppressing the virus, at the same time, if there were to be an outbreak, we all know the most vulnerable in our population would be very much at risk. And so how we can continue to work together to ensure we are getting the most vulnerable vaccinated at this phase in the process we welcome.
But I have to say thank you. 589,280 vaccines have already been administered by GPs across Australia out of a total of 1.359 million all around the country. There was more than 60,000 doses administered across the country yesterday, and two thirds of those were administered by GPs around the country. So there is no doubt in my mind that the safest place, the best place, for Australians to receive that type of healthcare through the vaccine is with their local GP and I want to thank GPs both here in Western Australia and right across the country, for the tremendous work they’re putting in looking after their patients, which is what they love to do and I want to thank you also for your great leadership and encouraging both the population and giving the calm assurance to support programmes such as this.
Dr Omar Khorshid, AMA President: Thank you very much Prime Minister. I’d also like to thank you, not just for your leadership and the Government’s tough and very deliberate decisions right throughout the pandemic but also for making the time in your busy schedule to meet with on the ground GPs to hear experiences about how we can make this vaccination programme work the best for Australians. And to make sure that we can get vaccine confidence back up to where it needs to be, so that all Australians get their vaccines by the end of the year and that we deliver that in a safe, assured way. It’s the only way out of this pandemic and general practices are here to support the Government in that very important task.