Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Last week I was contacted by Rachel from Mount Eliza in my electorate, who tells me that over 10 days she couldn't get through to get an appointment for the Pfizer vaccine and then, when she finally got through to the hotline, she was told she can't have a vaccination at the moment because supplies have run out. This morning, Glen from Seaford emailed me and I spoke to him. He can't get Pfizer and he says to me: why is there nothing available on the Mornington Peninsula? He has bipolar disorder and Barrett's syndrome. He should have been at the front of the queue to be vaccinated, yet now he has to wait for an appointment for at least another month and a half in order to, he hopes, get his first dose of Pfizer. Glen says: 'This is a total disgrace. The government had said that they had plenty of supply of Pfizer to accommodate, so where is it on the Mornington Peninsula? This is pathetic, and I want answers.'

We all want answers. We were told that we were at the front of the queue for vaccines in the world, but it's clear that we aren't even in a queue, let alone at the front of it. We've recently had revelations that Pfizer could have given this country many more vaccines than what, in fact, we got. Dr Swan has told the ABC that he understands that we could have had 40 million doses. It's not good enough.