Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk has come under fire on Q+A as she was forced to defend state government policy on border closures, calls for returning flights to be capped and her own decision to potentially travel to Tokyo for the Olympic Games.
Key points:
- It was suggested Australia should ask the United States government to send us more vaccines from their surplus
- Queensland Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk defended her government's COVID decisions on multiple fronts
- Ms Palaszczuk said two thirds of the state's frontline workers had been vaccinated
Questions were directed at Ms Palaszczuk by multiple viewers, and she was criticised by Australians who want to return home from overseas, but it was a question on her own travel plans that forced her onto the back foot.
Asked why it was OK for both her and Prime Minister Scott Morrison to receive their vaccines and travel overseas for meetings while most regular Australians cannot, Ms Palaszczuk was defiant in her response.
"The reason that I would be going to Tokyo is to a help secure the 2032 Olympics for Brisbane, Queensland, Australia," she said of the Olympic bid that looks all but guaranteed.
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"This is a very important meeting and it is expected by the International Olympic Committee that a federal representative, the Premier and the Lord Mayor of Brisbane, attend to present, in front of the International Olympic Committee.
"And upon return, I would do the 14-day quarantine in a hotel, not in my home, not at The Lodge.
"It's worth about $14 billion and I would hope, by 2032, we would be back to a normal society of freedom … it would create over 100,000 jobs."
While Ms Palaszczuk defended her decision to travel to Tokyo, she again made the call for travel numbers to be cut and said the issue would be discussed at Friday's National Cabinet meeting.
"Our resources are absolutely stretched. I'm at the max," Ms Palaszczuk said of the situation in Queensland.
"I have about 16 hotels that are used for quarantine in Queensland and we cannot take any more."
Two-thirds of Queensland's frontline workers have had their first jab
While she made that point, host David Speers reminded her the question she was answering was about failures specific to the Queensland government and Ms Palaszczuk said she acknowledged those failures.
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With Greater Brisbane, Townsville, Magnetic Island and Palm Island in lockdown due to an outbreak that started with an unvaccinated concierge near a COVID ward at the Prince Charles Hospital, the Queensland Premier was asked how common it was for high-risk workers to have not been vaccinated.
"And in aged care, which the federal government is responsible for, 14 per cent have had theirs."
Ms Palaszczuk said the Queensland figures were likely similar to those in NSW and Victoria, which Grattan Institute Director of Health and Aged Care Stephen Duckett said was simply not good enough.
"Frontline workers, aged care workers, aged care residents, quarantine workers were all in [Phase] 1a, and for some reason we didn't say we have to finish 1a," he said.
"This is our front line of defence. They should all be vaccinated before we extend the vaccination to anybody else."
'Call the Biden administration and negotiate'
Australia's vaccine rollout has been struggling and with the arrival of the more contagious Delta variant in multiple states, there were calls for more Pfizer to be made available to more Australians.
But that could be difficult as that vaccine is not yet being produced in Australia and the Queensland Premier took another swipe at the Morrison government over the nation's vaccine rollout.
"If the Federal government had organised enough supply way back in July last year, we would not be in this situation today," she said.
"There could have been adequate supply of Pfizer and Moderna and instead we are at the situation where we are days away from running out of Pfizer.
"And we were ramping up our vaccinations in Queensland. So we are very concerned about this."
That statement drew a frosty response from NSW senator Jason Falinski, who admitted there was a problem with the supply of Pfizer but said Ms Palaszczuk was playing the blame game.
"The Premier of Queensland received 55,000 doses in June," he said.
"Her government will be receiving 95,000 doses this week. And it will ramp up to 127,000 doses by the end of August.
Blame game or not, the panel accepted that the vaccine rollout had been problematic ever since very rare clotting issues were linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine.
But the answer, according to infectious diseases expert Michelle Ananda-Rajah, lies with leaning on one of Australia's closest allies, the United States.
Ms Rajah said we should be asking the US for some of their leftover supply of Pfizer to help vaccinate the nation and get Australia back to normal faster.
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"I wrote an op-ed on May 3 in The Australian and I talked about the US vaccine surplus and how we should procure some of that," Ms Rajah said.
"This month they are releasing 80 million doses throughout the world.
"Last week, they flew 2.5 million doses of Moderna to Taiwan, they've given eight million doses to Canada, South Korea, Mexico, India.
"They've given three million doses to Brazil. They have a glut. And what I want to hear from our leaders is that they are moving heaven and earth to get some of this vaccine."
Asked if she felt the Australian government was doing that, Ms Rajah pointed out the question was dismissed in Senate Estimates by Dr Brendan Murphy.
"I don't believe they are," she said.
"In Senate Estimates last week, when [Health Secretary] Brendan Murphy was asked this question, he dismissed it and said 'we have plenty of vaccine'.
"What we need right now is more Pfizer and Moderna. No stone should be left unturned."
Watch the full episode on iview or via the Q+A Facebook page.
https://news.google.com/__i/rss/rd/articles/CBMiZmh0dHBzOi8vd3d3LmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvbmV3cy8yMDIxLTA3LTAyL2FubmFzdGFjaWEtcGFsYXN6Y3p1ay10b2t5by1vbHltcGljcy1jb3ZpZC1kZWZlbmNlLXFhLzEwMDI2MTE4ONIBKGh0dHBzOi8vYW1wLmFiYy5uZXQuYXUvYXJ0aWNsZS8xMDAyNjExODg?oc=5
2021-07-01 14:03:27Z
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