Around 4.5 million Australians have downloaded the COVIDSafe app.
It's been a nationwide effort - from our cities to our regions and rural communities - and I want to thank everyone who has signed up. I am now asking millions more Australians to do exactly the same thing. Why?
State and territory governments are planning for the next phase of managing the virus and deciding on what restrictions can be eased. And while the COVIDSafe app is not a silver bullet - it is a ticket to ensuring that we can ease restrictions sooner and help the economy recover faster, by allowing us to identify more quickly people who may have had contact with the virus.
Downloading the app is like putting on a broad-brimmed hat and sunscreen to go out into the sun. It protects you, your family and your loved ones. It protects our health workers. And it protects your job, and the jobs of many others by getting more Australians back at work, more businesses back in business and more kids back at school. We need to restart our economy, we need to restart our society. The health experts and governments will do what they've promised: more testing and a rapid response to control outbreaks. But the last part - downloading the app - is up to us.
We all want to get back to a lifestyle closer to what we had and loved. For the app to fulfil its potential, we need a big take-up rate. It's not mandatory. That's not the Australian way. However, I believe it is crucial to the national interest.
We are in extraordinary times that have already required us to make very difficult sacrifices, or do things we might not normally do.
The app has been developed carefully by the Commonwealth Health Department to ensure your data and privacy is strictly protected. Only when a person is diagnosed with coronavirus is the contact information activated.
This information is gathered via Bluetooth and all it shows is if you have come into contact with someone who has tested positive with the virus, and have been within 1.5 metres, for at least 15 minutes. That is all. It's uploaded to a highly-restricted information storage system, available only to health officials in the relevant state or territory. No Commonwealth agency can access the data. Not state or federal police or politicians - no one. The app does not record a user's location or movements, only the information needed to identify a "close contact" and allow health officials to get in touch.
It's the same contact information that state and territory health officers are seeking now from positive cases. This just makes it so much quicker, in that we're not relying on people's memories. And it's more accurate. In many places, such as the supermarket, we wouldn't know the names or contact details of those with whom we may have had close contact.
Much has relied on the magnificent efforts of all Australians. We are on the road back. To finish the job together, let's get COVIDSafe.
