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

I thank Senator Siewert for the question. I reject the assertion that there's any sense on the part of the government that all parts of the Australian population aren't important in the vaccination rollout. The national plan for vaccination, which was agreed by national cabinet, with modelling done by the Doherty institute, was based on a certain population cohort and based on the information available at that point in time to Doherty and to Australia with respect to approved vaccines.

I think it's also important, at this point, that we consider the impact of the virus on Australians within different cohorts, which reinforces our process. We have received approval for the administration of vaccines to 12- to 15-year-olds and we have commenced the process of rolling the vaccine process out to the most vulnerable of those. We have started that. We have said that when the advice from ATAGI comes to us, when the advice from the health professions that are advising the government and guiding the vaccine rollout comes to us, we will make the vaccine available to the rest of those cohorts. Plans for that are already being developed, and they are important. If you look at the wording of the information from Doherty, they stand by their modelling and the targets that have been established. When you consider there are 1.2 million children in the cohorts you're talking about--(Time expired)