Ms THEOPHANOUS (Northcote): I rise to thank all our healthcare and frontline workers across the Northcote electorate who have been instrumental in our response to this pandemic.

In Victoria over the past week, we have undertaken 214 860 COVID tests and administered 147 600 vaccines at state-run centres across our suburbs.

This is a truly incredible achievement that would not be possible without the resilience and dedication of our amazing healthcare workers and pathologists.

And this is not to mention all our GPs, nurses, pharmacists, support staff and others who have been an essential source of advice and information.

They are respected and trusted members of our community—and in a diverse community like Northcote they are often the ones reaching out directly to our multicultural communities in their own languages to share information, advice and reassurance.

Northcote is home to hundreds of healthcare workers. Indeed, it is one of the most popular professions across our suburbs. To them, on behalf of all of us, I say thank you.

Yet I also share with our health workers a deep sense of disappointment and frustration in the federal government’s stalled vaccination program.

Winter has descended on our country, and yet we are still well behind schedule.

Australia’s vaccination rate is currently sitting at around 2.5 per cent while the United States and the United Kingdom have achieved more than 42 per cent full vaccination.

The Morrison government claims that there is no race but that belies the seriousness of the situation we confront.

This virus is just as deadly as it was a year ago. It has just the same potential to ravage our state. It can have just the same serious health impacts on those who contract it and recover.

If there is any doubt about this, all you need to do is look at cities like Toronto right now.

While our healthcare workers, our government and the vast majority of Victorians are doing everything in their power to step in and help boost vaccination rates, it is beyond disappointing to hear those on the opposite side of the chamber flirting again with conspiracy theories and seeding doubt in sections of our community about the scientific realities of this virus.

At best they are fooling themselves to think they can just wish this away. At worst they are deliberately spreading misinformation for political gain. Or perhaps they just think it’s all too hard and have thrown up their hands in favour of a misguided view that herd immunity might be preferable. It wouldn’t surprise me—they’ve never had the stamina to do the hard yards.

I call on the Morrison government to buck up, pull their state colleagues into line, and get on with their job, which is supercharging our vaccine rollout and building a quarantine facility to protect our state and our country.

It is baffling that the aged care and disability sectors—some of our most vulnerable Victorians—are still not fully vaccinated under their program. It is despicable that they had to be brought kicking and screaming to the table in order to offer Victorians a basic wage subsidy—and even then have refused it to a vast proportion working people.

All the while, our healthcare workers are steadfastly getting the job done.

They have been there for us when we need it most.

On behalf of the Northcote electorate, you have our gratitude and our deepest respect.

And as soon as I am eligible, I will be in the queue for my vaccine—for them and for all of us.