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

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services (Senator Colbeck) to a question without notice asked by Senator Siewert today relating to the COVID-19 vaccination program.

Senator Colbeck didn't answer my question about whether children are going to be included in vaccination targets This is a very important issue, because, if children under the age of 16 are not included in our targets, it means that 80 per cent is really 65 per cent of the population. That has ramifications in and of itself about the impact of COVID in the community, in terms of the infection rate, in terms of people who catch it and, unfortunately, in terms of deaths from COVID. Importantly, we need to stop our children getting sick. It's absolutely essential that we move strongly to make sure that teenagers under the age of 16 are included in our vaccination targets, because we've seen in the latest outbreaks that children are getting the delta variant. It is absolutely essential.

I'm going to share my time with Senator Faruqi, because she wants to talk about the TRIPS waiver. My last supplementary question was about the TRIPS waiver. The minister obviously did not understand the question, because he went on and had a rant at me about my comment. It was not about Australia; it was about the TRIPS waiver so that other countries get access to vaccines—in other words, waiving intellectual property rights so that those lower-GDP countries who don't have adequate access to vaccines can get access to vaccines. That's what that question was about. It was not about Australia. My other two questions were, but that one was about vaccines around the rest of the world. Our government, the Australian government, has not supported the TRIPS waiver. Australia is one of those countries standing in the way of making sure that the TRIPS waiver is in place. I would now like to hand over the rest of my time to Senator Faruqi.