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

I will try to keep it a bit lower, but this is an issue that's extremely important, and, if the government keep wanting to run interference, those are just more signs that they don't want us to talk about this or to know what the full brief was, what the full remit was or what the terms of reference were for this inquiry.

What the government refers us to, contained in the Doherty report, are some brief points about what that remit was. That is not good enough for the scrutiny that ought to and needs to be provided and undertaken, over the whole of the vaccine program and over decisions that are going to be made about the targets for vaccinations. I think it is extremely important that we understand the terms of reference for what is contained in the Doherty report.

What is at stake here is not having the appropriate and right target. In the calculation of the target, if you go for 80 per cent of just the eligible population, that in fact relates to 65 per cent of the general population, and a lot more people will get sick and a lot more people will die, including young people, because the delta variant is much more infectious. As we know, and as I've articulated in this place on several occasions now, children are much more at risk from the delta variant. Young people are much more at risk from the delta variant. So it's critical that we include people under the age of 16 in the calculations of the target. It's critical Australians know what information is being used to decide those targets, when the government are relying on just one source of information, apparently—the Doherty institute report—for which they prescribed the terms of reference.

I'm not having a go at the Doherty institute. What I want to find out is the specific terms of reference that the Doherty institute were asked to report on. What were the other parameters they were asked to report on? For example, to build a picture for people so they know, what was the calculation done on how infectious delta was as compared to the original variant and the alpha variant? Those sorts of things matter. That's why we sought and the Senate supported this OPD: to try and get access to this information so that we could understand what parameters the Doherty institute were specifically asked to model. Then we as a community could decide whether we think they were the right terms of reference and understand just what it means when the government decide they're picking particular targets and just how many people in the community will be at risk if we open up at 80 per cent—that is, 80 per cent of so-far-eligible people, because under-16-year-olds are not included, which, as I said, means that's actually a rate of 65 per cent.

We need to understand this information. That's why I asked for and moved this OPD—to get access to that information. For the government to claim public interest immunity is an insult not only to this chamber, but also to the Australian people and the experts who want to fully consider the Doherty institute report in the context of what the government asked them specifically to model.