Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to make a contribution to this discussion on Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2020-2021 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2020-2021. As expected, last night's budget included some money for our domestic vaccine rollout, including money for workforce, administration, monitoring, reporting, distribution, logistics, storage and communication. While this is welcome, we are far from the appropriate approach when we deal with both vaccines and quarantines here in this country and also in our global contribution.

The government has missed a significant opportunity to right its wrongs and the wrongs of a number of other nations around the world. We should be showing our neighbours that we are here to help and that we are supportive during this pandemic. Last year the government committed to dedicated funding for the Covax Facility. Covax is an important agreement that aims to distribute vaccines to those who need it most. It represents a landmark agreement between nations, where governments from every continent have chosen to work together to ensure vaccines are available to the most vulnerable everywhere—at least, that's the theory. This year the government has refused to commit any additional funds to Covax in the budget. Australia's lack of additional funding for Covax was a serious missed opportunity and sends the wrong message to those in desperate need of vaccines.

Across the world, we are seeing big pharma and wealthy nations engage in what's been termed as a vaccine apartheid. While one in four citizens of rich countries have received a vaccine, just one in 500 in the poorer nations around the globe have. We've already seen big pharma pay out $26 billion in dividends and stock buybacks to their shareholders. This would have been enough to vaccinate 1.3 billion people.

It's extremely important that we ensure that the lower GDP countries around the world are vaccinated not only because that is the right thing to do but also—and I will keep repeating this—because nobody is safe until everybody is safe. This is an investment in people, because we should be doing it. But, if you want to look at it from a selfish point of view, it's also making sure that Australians are protected, because it is absolutely essential that everybody is vaccinated. If we just go down the vaccine apartheid approach, where the wealthier nations can all get vaccinated, those in the lower GDP countries who aren't vaccinated will foster the development of further strains of the virus. What does that mean? It means the vaccines have to catch up and we are potentially not protected from some of those variants that are generated, perpetuating the need to keep our borders closed and perpetuating the pandemic. Any way you look at it, it's the right thing to do.

We're extremely disappointed to see there have been zero commitments by the government to support a TRIPS waiver. Since last year, over 100 low- and middle-income nations have been calling on the World Health Organization to waive intellectual property rights on COVID vaccines and products. Last week we saw President Biden show leadership by announcing the support of the United States for the waiver. The Morrison government should be following suit and should be contributing to the global discussion and supporting the waiver of intellectual property rights on COVID vaccines to ensure that we enable an equal distribution of the vaccines.

We've also, of course, seen the flawed domestic vaccine rollout. We have seen nothing allocated by the government, and the federal government refuses to acknowledge that it has a key role in quarantine in this country. It continues to push it off to the states and territories. There is the investment in Howard Springs. I have to say, of course, that expanding that investment is welcome, but we can't just rely on that facility. We need facilities in other states. It is a federal responsibility. Reach out the hand, work with the states and territories and ensure that we have quarantine facilities, because we are going to need quarantine facilities in this country for the foreseeable future. It is absolutely essential that we have top-quality quarantine facilities that actually meet the best standards—that we finally truly address the issue of aerosol contamination and spread. Although some of the words are now being mouthed, the actions aren't being taken. We still don't have the guidelines fixed, we still don't have a national standard to deal with ventilation, and we know that we don't have all of the states and territories making sure that their hotel quarantine facilities are up to date. We still have states and territories, my own state being one of them, where positive COVID cases are actually in the same facility—such as a hotel—as those who are, fortunately, negative.

These are the sorts of things we need to sort out in this country. Where is the federal government's leadership? Nowhere. We need to get serious about ensuring we have these facilities so we can bring home the tens of thousands of Australians who are still overseas—in particular, of course, those who are at high risk. I refer to the current situation going on in India, which I did briefly talk about in the Senate yesterday. This is not the appropriate way to be supporting Australians overseas. We need to make sure that we are putting on enough flights to enable those in India in particular—9,500 people, of whom 950 are vulnerable—to return home. At the moment the government has only committed to bringing 450 home, because there are only three committed flights, with a possibility of another three, which may then ensure that at some stage by June we get all of those vulnerable people home—the 950. But what about the rest of those Australians and permanent residents who are currently facing the dire situation in India?

We're also, of course, seeing the government not being transparent about vaccine doses and the deals that it's signing. The health department complain that we've recently had them in front of the COVID committee four times in as many weeks. Well, one of the reasons that we have to have them there is that they don't fully answer the questions, they don't fully answer the questions on notice and they hide behind cabinet-in-confidence. Another reason is that we keep seeing problems with the vaccine rollout, for example. On Friday, we had to have a hearing to address the issues with India. The government only recognised when a question was asked that there are 173 unaccompanied Australian minors in India. So my question to the government is: when would you ever have paid attention to that if it were not for the COVID committee asking those questions? So, yes, as far as this member of the committee is concerned, we will keep asking departments, particularly the health department, to come and answer questions so that Australians get answers about the botched rollout of the vaccines.

We still haven't had a satisfactory answer to why we haven't signed an agreement with Moderna, for example. Now Australians have to wait for more Pfizer doses to become available. Although there's been a further deal signed for more doses, we're not getting them until towards the end of the year—hence the hope that we will be able to get all Australians vaccinated by the end of this year. Government say they have provision for the purchase of additional vaccine doses, including mRNA vaccines, but there are zero details about how much funding has been set aside or, in fact, when this might happen. I'm so sick of the oblique approach to vaccines which we are facing. It is essential that the public know what is going on. It is essential that there be transparency and accountability on this issue.

We're not seeing a serious commitment by the government to a publicly owned mRNA facility in this country. MRNA vaccines and other mRNA drugs are the way of the future. An mRNA manufacturing facility, a publicly owned manufacturing facility—so that we are not at the whim of big pharma, and that's important as well—is an investment not only in this pandemic but in the future, because mRNA is going to be the leading edge of drug development into the future. The market can't guarantee us access to this revolutionary technology. We need a publicly owned facility. There is leading-edge research being done on mRNA vaccines and technologies around this country. Yes, it's happening globally, but we have some leaders here in this country as well. What is the government doing about negotiations with AusBiotech to ensure that we have a publicly owned facility here that is leading edge and able to do its own research and manufacture those vaccines here? I hope the government doesn't make the same mistakes but looks towards creating this and rethinks working with the private sector—yes, work with the private sector, but make sure we have a publicly owned facility so Australians and the government have control of the manufacture of and the decision-making on those vaccines and other drugs, going forward.

We need long-term thinking here. We are in this for the long haul. We've already heard that the borders probably aren't going to be open until sometime next year. That's what the experts have been saying all along, because this isn't over. We are already seeing more variants. The vaccines are all going to have to be developed to address those variants into the future. The pandemic and its effects are not going away any time soon. The Treasurer has acknowledged that. We need to be doing better in how we are responding in terms of vaccines, manufacturing here, openness and transparency and accepting the science of this pandemic. And that's one of the things I'm concerned about—we aren't, and aerosol transmission is a perfect example of that.

We've still got varying standards around the country. We still do not have best practice in some places. Government have made various announcements about what they're going to do—for example, testing of passengers coming to Australia through third countries. That still isn't happening. When it is going to happen? If that's not happening—and other sorts of things they're putting in place—once they start the repatriation flights from India, can they guarantee us that they have that sussed so that those flights do start on time and the best possible practice is in place? If they haven't started elsewhere, they need to guarantee that they are going to be doing it for those Indian flights so that people can come home when this stupid ban ends—which should be ended now. Those Australians and other people coming home from India need to be assured that those things are all in place so they are safe and people in Australia are safe. We have a long way to go with this pandemic. The government needs to fully acknowledge that and get these things right.