Page 1698 - Week 06 - Tuesday, 7 June 2022
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We cannot change the fact that COVID transmission continues throughout our community, as it does throughout surrounding New South Wales, but we are doing everything we can to reduce the risks to older people and people with underlying health conditions. Maintaining high vaccination rates, especially for those who provide close personal care to people whose health is most at risk, such as disability, aged care and healthcare workers, makes a big difference in reducing transmission and improving health outcomes for vaccinated individuals if they do become infected.
Wearing masks indoors in crowded situations, choosing to meet outdoors where possible and frequent hand washing also help. Staying home if you have any symptoms, even if you think it is not COVID, helps to reduce not only the transmission of COVID but also regular colds and flu. That supports our economy and ensures that the care workforce and workers in retail, hospitality and cleaning jobs, who are often casual with low pay rates, can continue their work with less impact from having to isolate and miss workdays.
The changes in this bill provide us with a toolkit to move quickly in an emergency situation to protect those most at risk in our community. It does so in a way that supports evidence-based decision-making by clinical experts. Those decisions will be transparently communicated to the community, so that we can all understand what is being done and why. The changes include the ability to engage external reviewers, to protect the human rights of individuals and to ensure accountability.
For over a year and a half, my last thought before I go to sleep is hoping that those people most at risk in our community will be okay tonight. My first thought when I wake the next morning is about what we can do today to better support service providers and individuals in our community to reduce their risk, because every life in our Canberra community matters. This is about protecting lives, and doing that in a way that is transparent, accountable and respects the human rights of every individual impacted by the decisions we make as a government and as a community.
We all—not just government but every Canberran—have a responsibility to each other to reduce the risks of this virus, to conserve the dignity and privacy of people who are impacted by public health regulations, and to support evidence-based decision-making and proper external review processes. These amendments provide a framework that enables us to fulfil these responsibilities.
I am a big fan of human rights. The rights we have as individuals are vitally important in each of us achieving our goals and being able to live a good life. But without responsibility to each other, we cannot be anything more than 420,000 individuals, doing our own thing. It is our responsibility to each other and respect for each other’s rights to live a healthy life that truly make us a community. Not all superheroes wear capes, but everyone wearing a mask around people at increased risk from this virus is a hero in my eyes. To all of you who are doing what you can to protect our community, I say thank you. It is good to know that we are not alone in our mission to take better care of each other.
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