Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Small, for your question. Rolling out the COVID vaccine across the country is one of the government's highest priorities, and 142,000 doses of the COVID-19 Pfizer-BioNTech vaccine arrived at Sydney Airport on Monday, a major milestone in Australia's response to the COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first shipment out of 20 million doses of the Pfizer vaccine the government has secured as part of Australia's COVID-19 Vaccine and Treatment Strategy.

The country is on track for the first and most vulnerable Australians to start receiving the vaccine from Monday. Approximately 80,000 doses of the Pfizer vaccine will be released in the first week. Approximately 50,000 vaccines will be made available to states and territories for hotel quarantine and border workers and frontline healthcare workers. Approximately 30,000 vaccines will be made available for the Commonwealth vaccine in-reach workforce to aged-care and disability care residents. It is expected that, of these, at least 60,000 will be administered by the end of February, with others to be continually administered thereafter, including to our most vulnerable residents in more than 240 aged-care facilities next week.

Suppressing the virus, delivering the vaccine and cementing our economic recovery to create jobs are this government's highest priorities.