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Legislative Council - Fifty-Fourth Parliament, Second Session (54-2)
2021-02-17 Daily Xml
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COVID-19 Vaccine

The Hon. I. PNEVMATIKOS (14:56): My question is to the Minister for Health and Wellbeing regarding public health:

1. Why has South Australia received just 2.8 per cent of the first national shipment of vaccines when we have almost 7 per cent of the population and an even higher proportion of older people?

2. Is there a priority order amongst phase 1a for the vaccine, or is it just first in, first served?

The Hon. S.G. WADE (Minister for Health and Wellbeing) (14:56): Here we have again the Labor opposition that loves to start white-anting every phase of the public health response.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: We had it from day one, even before—

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: Point of order, sir.

The PRESIDENT: Resume your seat, minister.

The Hon. R.P. Wortley: You never stick up for the state; that's what that is.

The PRESIDENT: No, the Hon. Mr Wortley is not helping. There is a point of order.

The Hon. K.J. MAHER: The minister has accused the opposition, and in particular the asker of the question, of white-anting the health response. Nothing of the sort was done. It was merely a question.

The PRESIDENT: There is no point of order, but the minister will address the question as it was asked.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: In relation to the honourable member's question, I would certainly hope that these questions are not the start of another phase of the white-anting campaign that we have seen from the opposition time and time again. I think the commonwealth government should be commended for the work they have done in relation to the vaccine program.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order!

The Hon. S.G. WADE: For months now they have been getting ready for this vaccine response. Even before the Victorian government went into the second wave—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! Members of the opposition will be quiet.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: —they were already putting in place the contracts to help us be safe in 2021 and move to a COVID normal beyond. But already we have the state opposition wanting to carp from the sidelines—

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Mr Wortley is out of order and so is the Opposition Whip.

The Hon. S.G. WADE: —undermining confidence in the program, and that is completely unacceptable. What South Australia needs in this second year of the pandemic is what we needed in the first year of the pandemic, and that is South Australians working together. So let me deal with the scurrilous assertions by the opposition.

I am advised that we will receive about 4,000 doses from the commonwealth's first national distribution of 50,000 doses. I am advised that is about 8 per cent per capita, which is higher than our population per capita. So I don't know where the Labor Party is getting their figures from, but that is the advice that I have been given.

Members interjecting:

The PRESIDENT: Order! The Hon. Ms Pnevmatikos has a supplementary. Members on my right will be quiet so that I can hear the honourable member.

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