Morrison said that Australia was “still on track” for a vaccine to be rolled out in March, and brushed off the criticism as an attempt to “stir up political issues.”
“Even if the Pfizer and AstraZeneca vaccines are approved this month, the government has said Australians won’t get access to them until March. That’s clearly not good enough,” he wrote.
Albanese said this is because Australia did not secure a deal for access to the vaccine until September, whereas other countries secured deals in March and April.
Morrison said Australia doesn’t need an emergency roll-out of the CCP virus vaccine because it does not face the same “mind-blowing” cases like other countries.
“We got to get it safe and we got to get it right,” Morrison said. “We’re not in the situation like the UK is. They had 58,000 cases yesterday.”
He added: “That is just mind-blowing.”
Morrison also added that other countries like Israel—which he said are in a “catastrophic” state—and the United States need to do emergency vaccinations.
But this is not the case for Australia, he said. “So we can’t cut corners on the vaccine. It has to be rolled out properly, in an orderly way, and that’s what we’re working hard to achieve.”
When asked whether the government is keeping Albanese updated with all the new developments, Morrison also said Labor was offered a briefing in December but didn’t take it up, adding that the last time Labor’s shadow health minister was briefed was in November.
“I talk to the chief medical officer every day,” Morrison said, adding that Albanese hasn’t.
“What’s informing his views is only for him to explain because he certainly hasn’t been sitting down with our officials,” Morrison said.
Morrison said Australia has one of the world’s highest vaccination rates because people have confidence in the system. “I’m not going to short cut that system. And if people want to focus on trying to stir up political issues, well, that says more about them than me,” he said.
Once the Therapeutic Goods Administration approves the vaccine, there will be another round of rigorous testing done on each batch sent across the country.