Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

The Greens will be supporting this motion. I was astonished when sitting in the COVID hearing last night when the department said that they couldn't hand over this information because it had gone to national cabinet, when I'd been here in the chamber with everybody else, hearing Minister Colbeck saying, yes, he would provide that information. If that information is not provided, how does that reinforce the community's confidence in our vaccine program, which is, I've got to say, at a pretty low ebb right now, unfortunately, because not one of their goals has been met? The goals have been rolled over and rolled over and rolled over. Now there is a vague promise that we may be there by the end of the year with everybody—those that want it—having had their first shot. There's been problem after problem after problem here, to the point where we've now had to bring in the Defence Force to make sure that we get the logistics right. People have no confidence at the moment, particularly after the announcements last week. We need to restore confidence in the program. There is absolutely no reason, unless the government is hiding something, that they cannot hand over this information to help restore confidence in the shambles that is the vaccine rollout program.

Last night we heard, in fact, that the government is now working on a new draft of the vaccine rollout program, the program that says you've got your priority 1a and then 1b and then 2a, 2b and 2c. That is apparently not going to be operating within the next couple of weeks. It has essentially been thrown out the window already; I will acknowledge that. The government are now in the position where they're redrafting that whole rollout program. Once again, there are changes to our vaccine program. Really we can have no confidence in any time frames the government articulates at the moment without that foundation information about how many doses of the Pfizer vaccine are going to be available from now through the next quarter and the next quarter. When is Moderna coming online, for example? Why didn't we have a contract with Moderna a long time ago?

The fact is that there has not been transparency in this whole program. What's happening with the contracts? We had one contract to start the logistics of the rollout, for example, in aged care to aged-care residents and staff. That didn't work, so then we got another contract because the first contractors couldn't do the job. Then we had a second lot of contractors come in to try and provide that rollout, and of course that didn't work either. There's a lack of transparency there; that's commercial-in-confidence information.

We have to make sure that we get access to as much information as possible. The government has to be as transparent as possible, because of the—I was going to say a slightly unparliamentary word there, so I'll retract that—shambles of the program that has been run out to date. When were these decisions made? How much Pfizer will we have? When will people have certainty that they can get their first jab and then their second jab? When will people have confidence that they will be vaccinated? This doesn't exist in a vacuum. It also connects to other issues that people want to know about—for example, when the borders are going to be open. It's absolutely critical that people have their vaccine, for the protection of themselves and of the broader community.

I see absolutely no reason why the minister cannot table this information. It is crucial information to start the rebuild of the community's confidence in our vaccination program. People are increasingly hesitant. We, as Greens, support the vaccination program and we were encouraging people to get vaccinated, but I can actually understand now why people are a little bit nervous. We want to counter that. We want to make sure that people have confidence and that we rebuild confidence in what has been a shambles—an absolute shambles. And the government can't say that they have been transparent in any of the vaccination program. They've only just started giving us some statistics.

Last night I was asking questions about mixing and matching vaccines and was told that they're doing some further work on it and that there wasn't a lot of information around. I subsequently got an email from someone—a health professional—who has been working on this and who attached at least three articles on the research that has been done on mixing and matching vaccines. Again, there's a lack of transparency. Other countries are doing it. Why can't Australia?

We actually need access and proper answers to these questions. We need them now, not down the track. We need this information now. So the Greens will be supporting this OPD because we do need access to this information. The government shouldn't be hiding behind national cabinet, as they continually do. They shouldn't be hiding behind it. This should be publicly available information. We should have had it last night, either here in the chamber or at the COVID committee. Instead, we've found the government hiding behind national cabinet. It is outrageous that the community cannot have access to this information. The government knows it. There is no excuse for the government not releasing this information, other than that they're trying to hide something—maybe that, in fact, there isn't enough, despite the government saying there will be enough. Maybe there won't be. Maybe we're going to be restructuring the rollout plans, perhaps to cover the fact that there is not enough. We just don't know. And, if we in here are speculating about this, what are people in the community doing? They're also speculating about whether there's going to be enough and why the government won't tell us what's going on. Produce the information. We shouldn't have to go through this debate in this chamber. The minister said he would produce the information—which was good—and now we find that we can't have access to it.

The Greens will be supporting this motion. It's about time that we had some transparency in what has turned out to be a shambles of a rollout.