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

My question is to the Minister for Health. It has been 3½ weeks since the Therapeutic Goods Administration approved the Pfizer vaccine. The Australian Medical Association has today raised concerns about some basic logistical arrangements for the vaccine rollout, including not enough GP practices have yet been approved and the government's national booking system isn't ready yet. Can the minister advise the House when these arrangements will be finalised?

Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. Shortly before question time we outlined the next phase of the vaccine rollout. This is phase 1A. The Pfizer vaccine rollout commences on Monday. It arrived into the country this Monday and it has been going through the testing processes. It now goes to the rollout process. In particular, there will be two parts that begin next week: (1) we will have 16 Pfizer hubs around the country—those were all outlined before question time—and (2) we will have approximately 240 aged-care facilities in week one which we expect and hope to reach. Those are in all states and territories. In particular, they will be delivered by courier direct to the facilities, which has a surge workforce that is highly trained.

Professor Murphy outlined before question time that there are approximately 500 surge workforce engaged in that part of the process. That process begins literally in a matter of days. I want to thank all of the states and territories for their work. I think Professor Murphy did say that he regarded this as the largest, most complex vaccination program in Australia's history. It is now in that very, very strong position.

At the same time, we know that today there were zero community cases nationwide. Those zero community cases mean that we are in a strong position. Having said that, we focus on our most vulnerable—that is, in 240 facilities across 190 towns and suburbs in week one. We are distributing 80,000 vaccines. We've said that, knowing that some may move over into the course of the next week, allowing for the early lessons, we are hoping and expecting that at least 60,000 vaccinations will actually be delivered. That's the course of phase 1A of the program.

Phase 1B is when general practices will begin their involvement. We've had those discussions with practices specifically. I know that Professor Michael Kidd, the Deputy Chief Medical Officer, was meeting again as part of a regular series of updates yesterday, with general practitioners. I spoke with him this morning. He was holding a webinar with general practitioners. The accreditation process has seen more general practices than we had hoped, which is magnificent. All general practices that meet the standards and that have applied for the EOI will be able to participate. We had initially hoped there might be a thousand. Then we had hoped it would reach two thousand. It is now likely to be more than three thousand general practices, if not more, that are accredited around the country. I want to thank them. They will play a critical role going forwards.