Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Under this government it is clear that this vaccine rollout is bungled, botched and a bloody mess. What we know is that, under this government, we have seen a vaccine rollout that has been delayed and played down. We've even been told by the Prime Minister that it isn't a race. I want to join with my colleague Senator McCarthy in encouraging the government to deal with vaccine hesitancy.

Be clear that, in standing in this chamber today, we are not seeking to downplay the importance of the vaccine. Anyone who tries to say that is absolutely wrong. We have always—always—supported the vaccine itself. But it is absolutely fundamental that we should be able to come in here and criticise the government's vaccine rollout, because they are doing a shoddy job. Senator McCarthy and I have sat in Senate estimates and asked officials of government departments what they are doing to deal with vaccine hesitancy, particularly in First Nations communities, and the answers have been absolutely galling. I made sure that those department officials knew that there was a problem with vaccine hesitancy in the Torres Strait and throughout the cape, and I got told that it wasn't a problem—but the figures show that it is.

Instead of just trying to pretend like everything is okay, we want to see the government taking this seriously and understanding that no amount of spin can make this any better. We have been in this pandemic for more than a year, and Scott Morrison still can't get quarantine right and he still can't get vaccines right either. There are no excuses any more when if comes to what this Prime Minister's responsible for. Yet, again today, we have seen the Prime Minister and the government trying to make sure that people know that this isn't their fault, that they are not responsible for the vaccine rollout. Well, Australians feel incredibly different.

We found out today that the AstraZeneca vaccine will only be recommended for use in people aged 60 and over due to the concerns over rare blood clotting. That is medical advice, and we accept that advice. But can I be very clear about this: we are now only producing a vaccine type in Australia that can only be used for people over the age of 60. So the majority of people are not able to get the vaccine type that we are producing here in Australia. If only we could have foreseen the need to produce a vaccine here onshore 12 months ago. That's what other countries did—they foresaw that issue.

The government like to talk about statistics a lot, but they definitely cherrypick the best ones. When we look at what's happening in other countries, we see that the US has vaccinated 44 per cent of its population—and Donald Trump was their president—and, in the UK, 45 per cent of people have been vaccinated—and their government has been described as a 'shopping trolley smashing between aisles'. What does that say about you lot and your vaccine rollout? The worldwide average is 6.2 per cent of the population being vaccinated, but Australia is sitting at just under three per cent of the population being fully vaccinated.

While the government talk about doses, what they are not talking about is people who are fully vaccinated—because they want to back in the Prime Minister when he says that this is not a race. The Prime Minister says that the vaccinations are not a race. Well, tell that to aged-care workers still waiting to be vaccinated and the disability workers who are still waiting to receive a single dose. The Prime Minister says that this is not a race. Well, tell that to communities still facing lockdowns. They have had enough. The Prime Minister says that this is not a race. Tell that to international tourism businesses, who have been told that they will have to wait until mid-2022 before international tourists return to our shores. They think that this is a race. The Prime Minister says that this is not a race. Tell that to the 36,000 Australians waiting to come home because this government refuses to take responsibility for national quarantine. They think that this is a race. The Prime Minister says that this is not a race. Well, tell that to the remote Indigenous communities who have not received a single dose of this vaccine but remain incredibly vulnerable to COVID-19. They think that this is a race.

Vaccinating our country and making quarantine safe is a race, and we are dead last. We don't even have our shoes on. We haven't even got ready yet. (Time expired)