Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House of Representatives) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] Thank you very much to the member for Griffith for moving that amendment on my behalf and to the member for Whitlam seconding it. This is an important bill that deals with some substantial administrative complications in Australia's vaccine rollout strategy, in particular because of the way in which appropriations work for departments, including the Department of Health.

As the government is making arrangements with vaccine and other medicine and pharmaceutical companies to implement our vaccine rollout strategy, the government are effectively having to make payments out of their existing appropriations, then reallocate internal finances until they're able to recoup the additional money through an appropriation which might be several months down the track. This is obviously not an efficient or effective way for a government to be able to implement a vaccine rollout strategy during a global pandemic. So this bill confers a spending power, effectively, on the minister for health to enter into arrangements and to make payments that relate particularly to securing COVID vaccines; in time, we hope, securing COVID vaccine booster shots; goods and services that relate to those things, including consumables; and also, in time, COVID-19 treatments or therapies—

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