Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When the world heard news of vaccines being rolled out as part of this pandemic there was hope. Australians had a bit of hope. We really needed our government to step up to get this vaccine rollout right in Australia. Over there they had their little meetings. They had their little gatherings of the Liberal and National parties, but they weren't talking about how to effectively roll out the vaccines. They were talking about the politics of rolling out the vaccines. They were talking about the politics and the marketing. They even rolled out vaccine announcements with Liberal Party branding, but they forgot one thing and that's to actually roll out the vaccines after they put their Liberal Party branding on it.

Four million vaccines by the end of March—well, that was a complete misfire. They had to walk back from that. Instead of committing down and saying, 'No, we got that wrong, but here's the new target', they stepped away from targets entirely. The Labor Party were saying back in January, 'We need to have vaccines ready for when the TGA makes approvals'. They said, 'That is dangerous'. They didn't actually organise the vaccines. The Labor Party said, 'You need to do more deals because we don't have enough deals to have a secure supply of vaccines'. They just shook their arrogant heads, did nothing and were only worried about the politics. Now Australians are going to be waiting longer for this mob to roll out the vaccines, our economy is going to suffer and Australians are waiting for their incompetence.