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

Australians would recall that what occurred in this country is that we took a very deliberate approach to the rollout and the approval of vaccines. We didn't, as happened in many other countries, have emergency approvals for the vaccine rollout. We waited and asked our approval agencies to fully approve the vaccines before we started administering them. We took advantage of the experience in other countries to understand what was happening with the vaccines and for that data to be utilised as a part of our approval process. We took a process where we would be able to say to the Australian people that we had undergone a full and thorough assessment of each of the vaccines before they were approved. I think that that was an appropriate thing for us to do.