Mark Butler (Hindmarsh, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Macarthur for his question, and for his advice to this side and to the whole parliament over the last three or four years as the nation grappled with this pandemic.

Right through this dreadful pandemic, both Australian governments, frankly, have been particularly focused on protecting those Australians who are most at risk of severe disease or death. My predecessor Greg Hunt and his colleague Ken Wyatt worked particularly hard at protecting First Nations communities during this pandemic, working hand in hand with those communities and organisations like NACCHO. I pay credit to Greg and Ken for that work. It must be said I was more critical about the former government's slowness in securing vaccine deals in the first year or two, which meant that Australia was desperately short of Pfizer doses in the middle part of 2021 just as the delta wave was building. Indeed, in July of that year, the ATAGI advice was that Pfizer not be administered to people over the age of 50.

This background highlights why there is so much concern at reports over the weekend that the member for Leichhardt arranged for a local property developer aged in his 60s to travel to Thursday Island to receive a Pfizer dose in that very month of July; concern that it was clearly understood across the nation that this man was not eligible, on ATAGI advice, for the Pfizer vaccine; concern that he was taking a dose that was intended to protect the vulnerable members of that community on Thursday Island; and concern that unnecessary travel to First Nations communities exposed those communities to a risk of infection—a risk that had been clearly identified and articulated by Greg Hunt and Ken Wyatt, to their credit.

The member for Leichhardt's own colleagues have reported on a large donation of $304,000 from this property developer, $4,000 of which was apparently for just one dinner attended by just five people—some dinner it must have been! The member for Leichhardt's constituents will draw their own conclusions about those elements of this story, but the member does have very serious questions to answer about his actions at a time when his own government was so focused on protecting the health of vulnerable First Nations communities, including Thursday Island, and when other Australians were expected to queue patiently for short-dose vaccines—

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