COVID-19 Booster Campaign

Ms WORTLEY (Torrens) (14:46): My question is to the Minister for Multicultural Affairs. How is the COVID-19 booster campaign engaging multicultural communities?

The Hon. Z.L. BETTISON (Ramsay—Minister for Tourism, Minister for Multicultural Affairs) (14:46): I thank the member for Torrens for the question, and I would like to recognise her energy and commitment, particularly to our Indian community and the diverse community in her electorate. The COVID-19 pandemic has reinforced how important it is to deliver up-to-date culturally and linguistically appropriate health messages to keep our entire community safe. The Malinauskas government commenced a COVID booster campaign on 8 May, with the message 'double vaxxed isn't fully vaxxed'.

I am pleased to inform the house that this campaign has engaged and targeted our multicultural communities by running full-page press in more than 10 community languages in the following papers: Greek Community Tribune, the AdelaideTuan Bao, Nam Uc Tuan Bao, Chieu Duong Sunrise Daily, SA Chinese Weekly, Al-Furat, Indian Sun, Punjabi Akhbar, the Indusage and Il Globo4. As well, we have delivered this message in community language radio stations: on 5EBI in Italian, Greek, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Arabic, Punjabi and Hazargi; on Radio Adelaide in Pitjantjatjara and English; and on SBS Radio in Italian, Greek, Mandarin, Vietnamese, Arabic and Punjabi. We also put out this message on 5ENA, which is a Greek radio station. As well as this concerted in language campaign, on social media we were including messages on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram.

Many pop-up vaccination clinics have been established in areas which have been identified as having lower vaccination rates, including my own electorate of Salisbury, which is an incredibly diverse area. This is an opportunity for us to encourage all residents to take advantage of these walk-in clinics. We know that COVID has taught us the importance of health information available in language to ensure community members have timely, factual information that is easily accessible, plus the website fullyvaxxed.sa.gov.au can be translated into 108 different languages.

Wellbeing SA has also undertaken targeted engagement with adult CALD communities. I had the opportunity to attend several barbecue/vaccination opportunities with the African Women's Federation. It was a really great opportunity for those who were quite fearful and concerned about vaccination to break down those barriers and to ask those questions but to do it in a social way in a place where they often attend events. I have to say that I was particularly impressed with the African Women's Federation because many people had many mixed messages. They made a decision that they wanted to keep their community safe, and they were supported by the government to do so.

I also have had the opportunity over the past three months to attend many, many multicultural events. I have taken that opportunity not just to celebrate at a festival or be at an independence day dinner but to remind people to get vaccinated because it is an opportunity to reach out to people at their own events. I recently went to a Nowruz Festival just after the election (great market stalls) and talked about vaccination. I also talked about the grandson of a refugee who is now our Premier. At the Indian Mela as well we had these conversations, and of course our Thai, Sinhala, Tamil, Khmer and Bangladeshi communities have all recently celebrated.