Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. This morning, the New South Wales Deputy Premier, John Barilaro, said in relation to the First Nations' vaccine rollout:

Should they have been vaccinated earlier? Yes. It was all part of the federal government's rollout of the vaccination program at the start of the year. It didn't occur

Why did the Prime Minister get this so wrong?

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Vaccinating, and indeed the public health of our Indigenous population, is a very high priority for the government. There have been many challenges there, as there often are, in ensuring that we provide the best possible health care to our Indigenous Australians.

This program in particular has had its challenges within Indigenous communities. The Minister for Indigenous Australians has been working very closely with Indigenous communities to address these issues and so I'll ask him to update the House on those matters.

Ken Wyatt (Hasluck, Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Australians) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In March of this year AstraZeneca was rolled out to over 150 Aboriginal community controlled health services to enable Aboriginal people to access it. Last year there was an Aboriginal COVID vaccination committee stood up, co-chaired by Pat Turner, to develop a strategic approach to ensuring that there are adequate supplies provided to the ACCHOs. In addition to that are the many GPs who our people also access.

The continuation of the rollout of the vaccine program is complemented by the strategic coordination that we commenced in March 2019, where I work very closely with ministers for Indigenous affairs out of other jurisdictions on the application of the Biosecurity Act to lock down communities in the first instance. That work has continued. Two weeks ago the ministers for Aboriginal affairs were briefed on the status of COVID supplies and strategies within their jurisdictions and what the Commonwealth was doing. They have joined with us in addressing and giving priority focus to the needs of their community controlled health services, as well as aligning the resources that are available at the state and territory level.

In talking with the Minister for Aboriginal Affairs in WA, he made the comment, 'I must have further discussion with my colleague Roger Cook, the Minister for Health, so that we ensure that we lift our vaccination rates.' I find it interesting when people talk about hesitancy not being an issue. Really, what that's doing is saying that Pat Turner and I are deceiving you on what the community is saying. The community is hesitant, based on the information. I have listened to media interviews; hesitancy is an issue that we have to overcome, and our work on the number of vaccinations is increasing. We have 37 per cent who've had their first dose and 20.5 per cent have had their second dose, so the numbers are increasing. We still have a lot of work to do and so we will continue to focus on making sure people are vaccinated and safe.