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

[by video link] The government has indicated that it will consider targeted incentives at the appropriate time to encourage Australians to get vaccinated. But, at the current point in time, we have, as we can see in all states, strong demand by Australians to access a vaccine. We have state premiers who are asking for additional vaccine supplies. Mr Dutton is right: at the appropriate time, the government will consider targeted incentives to targeted groups in support of vaccination.

What we won't do is take the reckless across-the-board, more bubble than thought approach that was proposed by Mr Albanese last week. We will take, as we've done all the way through the development and the rollout of the vaccination process, appropriate measures to, at the appropriate time, encourage Australians to take up a vaccine. That's been indicated by the head of our COVID-19 vaccination task force and it's been indicated by a number of my colleagues. So we will continue to take a considered approach to this, not some reckless spend-billions-of-dollars exercise to encourage people who have already been vaccinated to take up a vaccine. Why would we do that? Why would the government spend taxpayers' money where people have already taken up the vaccine? We will continue to operate our rollout on a considered basis.