Healthcare workers and support staff in our hospitals are working tirelessly to provide the highest quality of care for patients in the safest possible hospital environments during the worsening Coronavirus pandemic. They leave their homes and families on a daily basis, putting their own health and wellbeing at risk, to care for and support the most vulnerable in our community – their patients.

Under normal circumstances, a great proportion of these essential service men and women would travel to and from work via public transport. But in the current environment, and despite government measures requiring social distancing, increased sanitisation and disinfection throughout the public transport network, many consider it safer to drive to work than risk infection on our trains, trams and buses. And who can blame them?

During these extraordinarily challenging times, we, as a community, must make it as easy as possible for our healthcare workers and hospital support staff to get to work on the frontline, to continue caring for our sick, and to do so without incurring additional and unnecessary costs.

For this reason, we call on all Health ministers - State and Federal, local councils, individual hospitals, Parking Australia, individual parking operators and other stakeholders to ensure free parking is available to healthcare workers and hospital support staff around Australia for the duration of this COVID-19 emergency.

This measure has already been widely adopted throughout the UK and it’s time we followed suit.

Please show your support by signing and sharing this petition.

- Beautifully written by Danielle Phelan