SUBJECTS: Vaccine supply; vaccine rollout; national quarantine; Scott Morrison failing Australians during a health pandemic; regional Australia being left behind during the pandemic; Sydney lockdowns; Afghani interpreters; public information about COVID.

MATT BURNETT, LABOR CANDIDATE FOR FLYNN: Well, thanks for being here this morning. We have a serious issue in regional Queensland, in Central Queensland. When I called my GP to get the Pfizer jab, they told me they had none. In fact, they said there was none available at any local GP in Gladstone. And they asked me, 'As the candidate for Flynn, what can you do about it?' So I got on the phone and I called Anthony Albanese. And he's here in Gladstone today. I'd like to throw over to Anthony now.

ANTHONY ALBANESE, LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Well, thanks very much, Matt. And it's good to be here in Gladstone, a really welcoming community. And thank you for having us at the GP clinic here. The fact is, this issue has always been about supply. And the truth is we haven't had enough supply. We didn't do enough deals to roll out the vaccine, and we also didn't fix national quarantine. What they tell us here this morning is that they could be doing 1,000 Pfizer vaccinations a week. Instead, they are limited to just a few hundred. And at the moment, there's only eight Pfizer vaccines available at this clinic, full stop, until the next shipment comes. We need to do much better. And we need to do much better in terms of regional communities. I also note that today there's talk about more vaccines. But under the Government's own plan, under the phase that we're in right now, we're told that there should be 750,000 Pfizer of vaccines available in July and August and 1.3 million from the end of August, from the first of September. So we're not seeing huge increases at all in spite of the Government spin. If the Government put the same effort into doing deals with pharmaceutical companies to get access to vaccines as they do into marketing and spin for their own failures, then Australians would be better off and we wouldn't have the shortages and the frustrations that we see around regional Australia in particular, but right around the country. Scott Morrison did have two jobs this year - rolling out in the vaccine and national quarantine. It's good that he's now acknowledging that it's shortage of supply that is the problem. It is shortage of supply that means that people who want to get vaccinated, who are ringing up GP clinics like this one, can't get access to the vaccine

Can I also say to the people of Sydney, and indeed New South Wales at the moment, that all of Australia is with you. Australians in those communities locked down will be doing it tough. Small businesses will be doing it tough. If you can buy something online and keep those small businesses going, please do so. But we also need more Federal Government support for people who are losing their standard of living, losing their income, as a result of these lockdowns in Greater Sydney and New South Wales. They need support of the Federal Government. These lockdowns are Scott Morrison's lockdowns, as a result of a failure to vaccinate and a failure to fix up national quarantine. We know that this outbreak began when a driver took people who were foreign air crew to a quarantine centre without having a mask and without being vaccinated. So the Federal Government has a responsibility here to provide support to New South Wales, just as we called upon them to provide more support to Victoria and other communities that have suffered from lockdowns. Happy to take questions.

JOURNALIST: Do you think the earlier arrival of Pfizer vaccine doses are going to help with the vaccine rollout?

ALBANESE: Well, of course, it's always been about supply. But let's be clear here, these are very small increases in supply of the vaccine as a result of the pressure that's been put on a Prime Minister who yesterday, I saw standing up there at Kirribilli, when he emerged after six days of not having anything to say to the Australian people, he emerged to say everything was on target. The truth is that it's not. The truth is that this rollout has put us last in the developed world. And when people see Ash Barty last night there playing it Wimbledon, having that magnificent victory, every one of that crowd has been fully vaccinated. The truth is that here in Australia, we're under 10 per cent, were last in the developed world and we're not in the top 100.

JOURNALIST: Why do you think it has taken so long?

ALBANESE: Because this is a Prime Minister who was busy telling us last year that we were at the front of the queue. And we're so far back that we can't see the front of the queue. The truth is, this Government said, Greg Hunt last year, that all Australians would be fully vaccinated by October. That's not true. That four million Australians would be vaccinated by the end of March. That's not true. That essential workers in category 1A and people who were vulnerable, aged care residents, disability care residents, aged care workers, would all be fully vaccinated by Easter. And that was not true. And there are real consequences for that. The Government, rather than do enough deals with enough pharmaceutical companies for enough vaccines early enough, put all its eggs in the AstraZeneca basket and those chickens have come home to roost. Because we haven't had access to Pfizer, enough quantities of Pfizer, and we haven't had any access to Moderna.

JOURNALIST: Do you think the police operation in southwest Sydney to enforce COVID rules is proportionate? Has it been fairly applied in Sydney, do you think? 

ALBANESE: Well, I just say this. What we need is effective public information campaigns as the frontline. People do want to do the right thing. And Australians have overwhelmingly done the right thing. They've made sacrifices. They've looked after each other. They've stayed at home. They've worn masks. They've done whatever the authorities and health experts have advised them to do right around the country. And we should respect that. I say to everyone in Sydney and New South Wales - stay safe, follow the advice, if you have any concerns, ring your local GP. And certainly, part of the community that's being spoken about, Canterbury-Bankstown, is in part in my electorate of Grayndler in the Inner West of Sydney. And I just say to people - stay safe today.

JOURNALIST: And just outside of COVID. John Howard says Australia has a moral obligation to help Afghan interpreters who've supported Australian troops in Afghanistan. Is the Federal Government doing enough to help them resettle in Australia?

ALBANESE: Well, quite clearly, they are not, which is why John Howard has called this out. And I'm with John Howard on this. These Afghanis did the right thing to keep our Australian troops and Australian personnel safe. They've made themselves vulnerable as a result of that. We have a moral obligation to look after them. The Federal Government should be fast-tracking support for them to make sure that no one loses their life or is punished because they have assisted Australians. That's not the Australian way. And I say to the Federal Government - that they've known about the withdrawal for some time now. They should have put this in place a long time ago and provided that assistance. But whilst it would have been better to act last month, last week, how about they act today? We need to provide support for the same people who provided such courageous support to Australians when they've been in Afghanistan. Thank you.

JOURNALIST: How many vaccines are at this facility at the moment?

ALBANESE: There are eight, I think that's the count, Pfizer.

JOURNALIST: Eight vials, and it is six doses per vial. And do you know what the vaccination rate is for Central Queenslanders to get vaccinated?

ALBANESE: What we know is that the national figure is around about 8 per cent. And in regional communities, that figure for many of them is lower than that.

JOURNALIST: Is there a date for when more vaccines will come to Central Queensland?

ALBANESE: Vaccines are coming. They arrive every week.

JOURNALIST: Every fortnight.

ALBANESE: Every fortnight they arrive here. But what we need is more supply. And we need more supply around Central Queensland, but right around the country as well. 

JOURNALIST: Is there a reason for such inconsistency of information that has been given to the public? 

ALBANESE: Look, that's up to the Federal Government to explain. But certainly, one of the issues with the pandemic has been changing information that has come out, and inconsistent information. And in part, one of the explanations for that has been a Government that's been determined to say, 'She'll be right, mate'. When the truth is, it's not right. The truth is, we are still having lockdowns. And Australia is locking down when the rest of the world is opening up. And the key to opening up is getting people vaccinated and fixing national quarantine. That has to be the priority. Because until we achieve that, then we'll continue to have the economic costs that come from lockdowns, and we will continue to have health consequences. We have too many people in ICU in Sydney at the moment, too many people hospitalised, too many people exposed and too many businesses and communities locked down as a result of a failure when it comes to the rollout of the vaccine and national quarantine. Thanks very much.

ENDS