House debates
Wednesday, 1 September 2021
Questions without Notice
COVID-19: Vaccination
2:15 pm
Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
[by video link] My question is to the Prime Minister. Your job is to keep all people safe, not just some. But even though you set an 80 per cent vaccination target for adults, there's no target for children, nor for at-risk communities like First Nations peoples or peoples with disabilities. Everywhere from Wilcannia to the United States, we're seeing the virus rip through at-risk communities. Prime Minister, at national cabinet this Friday, will you ensure the national plan has separate vaccination targets for children, First Nations people, people with disabilities and other at-risk groups so that they're vaccinated to at least the same levels as the broader population when restrictions are eased?
2:16 pm
Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
I thank the member for his question and highlighting those very important groups within our community, all of which are encompassed within the national plan. The member may not be familiar with the details of the national plan and, in particular, how it recognises that even within the overall vaccination targets of 70 and 80 per cent that there is a strong recognition in all the work that has been done going into that plan that there will need to be careful management around vulnerable communities. Those vulnerable communities are CALD communities, they're Indigenous communities, they're a range of many other communities—those who are homeless, those who have issues with substance abuse. There are a range of varying groups across the community which will require continued careful management for their public health.
The Chief Minister here in the ACT has been making this point extremely well. And he and I have discussed it on numerous occasions as we've been preparing plans to deal with a pandemic that post 70 and 80 per cent vaccinations will require an ongoing and very careful public health plan that deals with disadvantaged communities. Socioeconomically disadvantaged communities—we've seen this in how the pandemic has played out, not just here in Australia but all around the world. And there will be a very clear and cooperative national strategy that deals with the ongoing public health needs of disadvantaged communities. But that plan will ensure that the broader community will also be able to go forward, and this it's why it is a safe plan.
It's a safe plan that enables the broad spectrum of Australia to move ahead and to avoid these terrible lockdowns that are causing so much pain and for Australians to move on from that and not live in fear of them either but, at the same time, ensure that we have very targeted and focused public health responses at a state and at a federal level that understand the very serious needs of those communities, be they in remote places—this is a matter the Chief Minister of the Northern Territory has consistently raised, and we have worked together on from the outset—
Dr Freelander interjecting—
Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
working closely with him, as we indeed are now, because there is such a disparate—a disparate—performance on vaccinations, particularly in the Northern Territory.
Dr Freelander interjecting—
Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
The member for Macarthur will cease interjecting.
Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source
So that is exactly what the national plan provides for. I'm sure the member will be pleased to hear that. And, if he'd like to learn more about it, then we'd be very happy to ensure he can be provided with further details if he were so interested.