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

[by video link] At this point in time the government is running a national vaccination program that provides access to a vaccine to every Australian who wants it. That is the program we are running. It may very well be that the vaccination program needs to continue for a period of time until we get to the stage where we have, at a global level, dealt with this virus. There are some questions that we don't know the answers to. If you had spoken to anyone six months ago, the concept of the delta variant and the effect it is having across the world, as you've quite rightly stated in your question, was clearly not understood. The virus continues to mutate. We are not going to understand in advance what those mutations might be. We have to be prepared to move quickly to adapt to those things as they continues to evolve. So the vaccination program will go for a considerable period of time, and the taxpayers— (Time expired)