SUBJECTS: Vaccinations in the ACT; lack of vaccine supply, bulk billing GPs closing; Scott Morrison’s lockdown; ACT Labor Conference; Zed Seselja’s opposition to Territory rights; health advise; Barnaby Joyce and net zero emissions by 2050. 

ANDREW BARR, CHIEF MINISTER, AUSTRALIA CAPITAL TERRITORY:Well, thank you very much. I’m really pleased to be here at an ACT Labor Conference, to be able to hold a conference in person, and to welcome Federal Labor Leader Anthony Albanese to address our conference today, a really important occasion for ACT Labor. I'm delighted that Shadow Finance Minister and ACT Senator and Former Chief Minister Katy Gallagher joins us today as well. We're really pleased to be able to get on the front foot with the next phase of the vaccine rollout in the ACT. And, so, the announcement today that 30 to 39 year-olds can get into our vaccine registration system, so that as soon as the vaccine supply arrives in the Territory, we'll be able to start making those bookings. This is an important way that we can streamline the process for people aged 30 to 39, allow them to make their bookings online in an efficient way. And that we can make the most of whatever vaccine doses the Commonwealth is able to provide to us. In the ACT, we have a very strong demand for vaccination. And our current supplies are fully utilised. We want to see more people vaccinated, we know that's the way forward for the country. And we know that in order to make our city safe, and indeed every city and town in Australia safe, we just need to get more vaccines to more people more quickly. And there's a really important role for state and territory governments to play here. And, so, we're stepping up to do our part.

But what we need is more vaccines. And we are relying on the Commonwealth Government to deliver very belatedly on what we need to keep our community safe. We also have the opportunity today to focus on the lack of bulk billing doctors in the ACT and the fact that, in the midst of a public health crisis, we're seeing bulk billing GP clinics closing. This is because there isn't enough support within the Medicare system for GPs. This is a challenge particularly for our community, but it's one that is across the nation as well. And, so, what we need to ensure is that our Medicare system is properly funded to support primary health care in our community. We know there's going to be pressure on hospitals and our health system as a result of the pandemic. So the more that we can do to support primary health care, which is a fundamental responsibility of the Australian Government in all communities across this nation, the more that we can do the better it will be for the health of our overall community.

So, they’re our key messages today; that we're getting on with delivering the vaccine program, and that we need more support and more vaccines from the Commonwealth, and we need more support into primary health care in Canberra. They are hand to Federal Labor leader for some further remarks.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY:Great, thanks very much, Andrew. And it's good to be able to address the ACT Labor Conference, the first one since your election victory last year, and congratulations to you and your team.

The fact is that until we fix the rollout of the vaccine and have national quarantine facilities then they'll continue to be these constraints. That's why this is Scott Morrison's lockdown. That's why Scott Morrison disappeared in the middle of this lockdown for six days without giving a press conference. He’s a bit like a comet, he shows up every now and again, there's lots of light, but not much substance, and then it disappears again. What we actually need is a prime minister who's prepared to show leadership and we haven't had that, at the moment. Scott Morrison did have those two jobs this year, and he failed in both of them. And what we need to do is to make sure that we get out, we get it right, including get the supply of the vaccine right. And yesterday's the first time that the Prime Minister has had a discussion with the head of Pfizer.

Can I say, also, at this difficult time for people in Greater Sydney and in Victoria that I know that people are doing it tough. And, in particular, families are doing it tough. People are worried about their young ones, parents are worried about their children. And we need to do whatever we can to provide that support. The Prime Minister, any support has been welcomed this week. But there was a lot of confusion out there with three different iterations of the support packages announced in just one week. What people need is more certainty and more clarity of message from the Government, with regard to the vaccines, about eligibility, and what we need to do is to fix supply. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Mr Albanese, the APEC Regional Leaders Summit was held last night. Jacinda Ardern talked about regional leaders opening up to the world for use of vaccine passports, for the use of quarantine-free travel bubbles. You’ve spoken about how the rest of the world is opening up while Australia locks down. The UK is one of those countries that's opening up with 52,000 daily cases and 49 deaths. If you were Prime Minister, would you be prepared to accept that risk for Australia to reopen?

ALBANESE: Well, my view has been that we need to listen to the health experts and our health experts. We're in a different circumstance from the UK, obviously. We're both islands, but they're obviously a lot closer in terms of their international borders. One of the advantages that Australia has had during 2020 is out of what historically has been seen as our isolation from the rest of the world. We've squandered that advantage with a failure to roll out the vaccine effectively and the fact that we're last in the number of vaccinations in the developed world. This was always a race. Scott Morrison said it wasn't a race. But state and territory leaders knew that it was, businesses know that it is. And those Australians who are locked down today know that this always was a race. And it's a race in which Scott Morrison failed to get out of the starting blocks.

JOURNALIST: What risk are you prepared to take to reopen?

ALBANESE: That should be a decision based upon proper health advice at the time, based upon the circumstances which are there. I, as Opposition Leader, of course I’m not the Government, so we don't have the same advice. I don't have departments at my disposal. But what we need to do is to make sure that there's full transparency in those processes. What's quite clear now is that Sydneysiders aren't open up to each other. Our interstate borders aren’t open up right now. And they're the circumstances that we're dealing with right now. That's the challenge for Australia, is to get on top of this, to make sure that we can resume economic activity.

JOURNALIST: But isn’t this outsourcing leadership to health experts? You want to be Prime Minister of this country, wouldn't you want to lead?

ALBANESE: I want to lead based upon proper advice from health experts.

JOURNALIST: Does that mean taking every decision based upon what health experts are telling you?  

ALBANESE: In advice, that that means taking advice, and advice based upon the circumstances.

JOURNALIST: So you’d never differentiate yourself?

ALBANESE: There would be no advice at the moment, when Sydney and Melbourne, I, at the moment, in order to participate in the Parliament in two weeks’ time, I can't go back to Sydney. They're the constraints that are on people at the moment. There are much more harsh constraints than that. People in Marrickville can't go to Parramatta at the moment. So, I think the idea that you want a crystal ball about where things are at is not realistic. What I do know is that the key, as it always has been, to opening up is the effective rollout of the vaccine.

JOURNALIST: Just one for Katy if that’s OK? We spoke about the Andrews Bill inside. Have you spoken to Senator McMahon since all this has come to light and will you move an amendment or seek to co-sponsor the bill?

KATY GALLAGHER, SENATOR FOR THE AUSTRALIAN CAPITAL TERRITORY: Okay, so we haven't seen the bill from Sam McMahon. I'm not aware if it's even been drafted. But certainly, if it has been drafted, and when it gets released, happy to have a look at it. I think her bill is proposed to do a whole range of other things. Clearly, it excludes the ACT. I think a much simpler way of dealing with it would be to have a straight repeal bill which we have moved in the Senate before, which just repeals the Andrews bills, doesn't bring in other issues, and just gets the job done. That would be my intention and my hope to be able to do that in this Parliament.

JOURNALIST: So, would you approach her to just put a simple repeal bill forward, hopefully co-sponsored by the Liberals, or by the LNP?

GALLAGHER: I have to go through my own party processes, that we've done. I mean, I can't just decide to move a bill, I need to get the support through our caucus, particularly if it's a conscience vote, to go through those processes first. So, I need to do that. But yeah, in the Senate, we talk, I talk to people all the time, we have discussions, it's better if there's a cross party approach on matters like this. That's how Marriage Equality was dealt with when that went through the Senate. So I think that is a sensible approach. But at the moment Senator McMahon, who's lost pre-selection so may not really have the influence to bring forward a bill anymore, has been told to exclude the ACT by Senator Seselja. I mean, in what world do we live in where you have an elected representative from the ACT actually lobbying against the ACT being treated the same as every other jurisdiction? It is quite an extraordinary set of circumstances. So, there's a bit of work that needs to be done internally in the Liberal Party as well.

JOURNALIST: Zed Seselja’s argument is that he doesn't not support territory rights. It's just euthanasia. Do you think that he's kind of conflating the issues a little bit?

GALLAGHER: Of course he is. It’s rubbish. The bill that would get voted on is on territory rights. It doesn't have to mention the words ‘voluntary assisted dying’ or ‘euthanasia’. It was a repeal bill, he voted against it. So, measure the guy and what he says on his actions. When that bill last went to the Senate, it got defeated by two votes, of which one was the ACT Senator. Zed has served in the Assembly, as have I. What argument does he put forward that would suggest the Assembly is not able to debate these matters in a mature way? It's a mature parliament. It has managed the COVID response to point that under Andrew’s leadership that we're actually able to be here today. Why can't that same parliament debate matters of voluntary assisted dying on behalf of their constituents, just like any other parliament?

JOURNALIST: Just on, you’ve said before you’d be taking the health advice. The Government says it’s taking the health advice. It says it was taking the health advice at the time it was organising <inaudible> for which you’ve been critical. If you’re both going to the election saying you’ll both take the health advice, what's the difference?

ALBANESE: He wasn't taking the health advice. All of the advice was to do multiple deals with vaccines last year, all of the health advice. And we in the Labor Party were saying, this time last year, that you needed to do five or six deals, which was international best practice. You had to look at what was happening at that time, and the advice, in terms of mitigating risk, was an economic issue, of course, and to mitigate risk with new vaccines. mRNA vaccines, of course, were new. Our scientists deserve extraordinary, global scientist deserve extraordinary praise for the work that they've done. And, therefore, at the time, there was uncertainty. So, the CSIRO work, for example, in Queensland didn't result in the production of a vaccine that is being used today. That's why you needed to do multiple deals. We said that at the time, Scott Morrison said we were at the front of the queue. And the truth is that we weren't, we’re last in the developed world.

JOURNALIST: So would you reopen Australia’s international borders if there were any deaths in this country?

ALBANESE: I want to see Australians brought home as soon as possible.

JOURNALIST: That wasn't the question. <inaudible>

ALBANESE: I want to see Australians brought home as soon as possible and I want to see economic constraints as little as possible. But the key to that is making sure that people are vaccinated properly. And at a time where New South Wales and Victoria are locked down, almost half of Australia's population have constraints on their activity right now, are being told to stay at home, I think the debate re opening up is premature.

JOURNALIST: But there’s going to be, when you open there’s going to be, people are going to <inaudible>

ALBANESE: We will take advice, and at that time, Jono, I'm sure that we will hold a press conference and we will have lots of opportunities to discuss that.

JOURNALIST: That’s what I’m asking. Would you be comfortable opening the country if there was <inaudible>

ALBANESE: I've given my answer, I maintain that answer. We would need to take advice based upon the circumstances at the time. And one of the things that I have not done is change advice, change my views from day to day, unlike the Prime Minister.

JOURNALIST: You changed it yesterday. Yesterday you said you wouldn’t open unless there was mRNA vaccines.

ALBANESE: That's not right. And at the time, when that was asserted, I said I was being verballed. I did not say that.

JOURNALIST: It’s in your transcript Mr Albanese.

ALBANESE: I did not say that. I said we have a four-point plan of things that should have happened. And then I went through in great detail and went through and said how there hasn't been progress on any of those measures. That's what I did yesterday.

JOURNALIST: mRNA capability is not a factor to reopen the country? Yes or no?

ALBANESE: No. As I said yesterday. In a one word answer yesterday, I said no. It's really hard to hear, mate, sorry.

JOURNALIST: If you’re saying the fourth point is no longer a factor to reopen, are your other three points factors?

ALBANESE: I have said on multiple occasions the key to removing economic constraint is the two jobs that the Government has – the effective rollout of the vaccine and national quarantine. They're the key to removing the economic constraints that are there.

Can I make comments about one other issue, that I was expecting to get a question on, about Barnaby Joyce? Barnaby Joyce has said that he would no longer remain as Deputy Prime Minister and Leader of the National Party if the Government adopts net zero emissions by 2050. Now the rest of the world, all of our major trading partners, every state and territory government, have all adopted net zero by 2050. It's very clear that, at Glasgow, Australia will be isolated unless we adopt net zero by 2050. And this is an example of the Liberal Party and National Party being held hostage to what is a minority position, a position that’s rejected by every state and territory government, a position that's rejected by our major trading partners in Europe, in North America, in South Korea, in Japan, a position that is rejected by the Business Council, the National Farmers Federation, and others. It's very clear that Australia should adopt net zero by 2050. Barnaby Joyce's position is just holding back the whole country.

JOURNALIST: Just a question to Andrew Barr, if I may. Andrew, as Chief Minister of the Territory within the Federation that is Australia, what’s your risk profile? How much risk of Coronavirus <inaudible>.

BARR: What we've been focusing on is getting more people vaccinated. I think the pretty important criteria is that everyone has the opportunity to be vaccinated. I accept it is unrealistic that every single citizen will be fully vaccinated. Some will choose not to. But I think an important benchmark is that the Australian Government is in a position to offer the vaccine to everyone. Until you are at that point, these conversations are not particularly helpful.

JOURNALIST: Because you've been remarkably fortunate over the last 18 months or so, there hasn’t been the levels of outbreak. <inaudible>. Do you still fear that if there was an outbreak here you will lockdown? Is there still a risk of lockdown for you?

BARR: Yes, there is because our population is in vaccinated enough. Although we've got a very high level of well-above the Australian average level of vaccination, we still have more than half of our adult population and all of the under sixteens pretty much not vaccinated. So, we certainly are not in a position to be able to live alongside the virus. What we need is more vaccines more quickly. And we'll get them into people's arms together with GPs and pharmacists and the broader health network. We can do it if we have the vaccines, but until we get to that point, I think these discussions about when we open Australia up are just really not dealing in a reality. It’s not going to happen this year. I think that's pretty clear. It's a conversation for 2022 once everyone has had the opportunity to get vaccinated.

ENDS