Simon Birmingham says he hopes today’s national cabinet meeting can act as a “circuit breaker” – but he has taken a swipe at the Queensland government, accusing it of making “far from helpful” public contributions this week.
The federal finance minister popped up on Sky News a short time ago. In the interview, Birmingham said Australia’s Covid-19 vaccination strategy “has had to adjust” because of vaccine supply challenges, but he argued Australians were embracing the vaccine rollout, “despite some of the scaremongering, some of the naysayers around the rest of the country”.
Asked whether he was referring to the Queensland premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk, Birmingham said: “I think some of the comments that came from Queensland this week have been far from helpful in that regard.”
He said he hoped the Queensland government would “put the politicking aside” and get on with the job of supporting the vaccine rollout. Birmingham said he hoped it would be a circuit breaker “and that perhaps premier Palaszczuk can listen to premier [Daniel] Andrews, for example, who has been a bit more sensible in his messaging on the vaccine of late than she has”.
A quick reminder: as Katharine Murphy reported this week, state governments were confused by Scott Morrison’s Monday evening comments about access to AstraZeneca for under-40s because the prime minister had not explicitly flagged it in the national cabinet meeting beforehand.
Birmingham did not repeat the formulation he used yesterday, when he conceded “countries like New Zealand and Australia” were placed “at the back of the queue” for Pfizer vaccines. But Birmingham said it was unsurprising that many countries and drug companies were prioritising parts of world with “huge” outbreaks and loss of life, which had not been the experience in Australia and New Zealand.
The Australian government had hoped that AstraZeneca “would be able to be the workhorse” of the vaccination strategy “but it’s had the hurdles” that everybody knew about — and that was why it was important to have “back-ups in place”. He said the federal government continued to have discussions with drug companies about improved access.
Defending the government’s performance, Birmingham said it had taken 47 days to deliver the first million doses but just nine days for the most recent million doses – a sign of the vaccination program ramping up.
