CHANNEL 9 THE TODAY SHOW

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

SUBJECTS: Vaccine rollout; Home quarantine; Navy ship Commissioning.

KARL STEFANOVIC, HOST: Let’s bring in Defence Minister, Peter Dutton and Deputy Leader of the  Opposition Richard Marles. Good morning to you both. Thanks for your time. Pete, you heard Gladys there, the New South Wales Premier. They are ready, they are waiting and we just don’t have the vaccine.

PETER DUTTON, MINISTER FOR DEFENCE: Karl, a couple of points; I think New South Wales has done a great job right through contact tracing and the roll-out of the vaccine- and other states as well. We were accused of rushing the vaccine at the beginning of the year, that we shouldn’t have waited for the TGA advice to approve it. There is lots of free advice out there but as you know, the Prime Minister has worked very closely with the Premiers to make sure that we can manage COVID. We are in one of the best positions compared to anywhere else in the world. There is now about 1.3 million vaccines that have been rolled out. We have got supply and obviously contracts now for an additional 20 million doses from Pfizer. So we will work through this. We will get the international borders open in time and we want to manage the economy and make sure people can stay in their jobs and keep their businesses open. And we are getting that balancing act right. It is not easy and there will be blips along the way but ultimately I think together, we are all doing a good job.

STEFANOVIC: Richard, there is no doubt confidence in the AstraZeneca rollout has waned, especially given this woman’s death. There is no direct link yet but none of that helps, does it? What are your thoughts on confidence in the AstraZeneca jab and the take-up?

RICHARD MARLES, DEPUTY LEADER OF THE AUSTRALIAN LABOR PARTY: Firstly, my thoughts are very much with that woman’s family. We need to be taking the advice of our medical experts and they are advising that those over 50 can still safely get AstraZeneca. I will be doing that. It is really important that we are taking up this vaccine. And listening to the New South Wales Premier, I think Gladys makes a lot of sense. She is making the point that she would take it but she’s also making the point that there is a timeliness on this. We need to get this done as quickly as possible. To be frank, the Federal Government last year in the midst of its self-congratulation was complacent. It did not spread risk in terms of the queues that we were in for vaccines. It bet the house on being able to manufacture AstraZeneca here and have it do the lion’s share of the job. And now it has got to explain how we are going to get vaccinated this year. Because if we don’t, we are going to be left behind.

STEFANOVIC: Okay, back to you Pete. Pfizer’s boss is this morning saying people will need a third booster shot to protect them. Where is that going to come from? In light of that, Professor Marylouise McLaws also said yesterday she believes it will be the end of 2022 before our entire population is vaccinated. The end of next year. That is going to be a surprise and a shock to a lot of people.

DUTTON: Well, Karl, look I’d listen to the experts that have all of the information available. And the Chief Medical Officer, all of those who are involved in – at both Commonwealth and a state level, the Chief Medical Officers – are talking about the vaccine rolling out this year, and that’s what will happen. So to Richard’s point, there could have been a blip with the Pfizer vaccine. That’s why we did take a lot of money and we put it behind a number of vaccines. We did spread our bets. We were criticised at the time for doing that but we will make sure that we do it safely and take the doctors’ advice. To your point, I don’t think there is much surprise, to be honest, about talk from Pfizer about a follow-up booster jab. There has always been a question mark about how long people would have their positive antibodies that had already had the virus. It is a question as to how long these vaccines work for and as we know, there are millions of people who get the flu shot each year and that flu shot is modified each year to deal with the different variants and strains as the medical advice is gathered up from around the world as to its effectiveness from the previous season, and that there would be a booster shot or that there would be an annual shot. All of those things will be worked out once the medicine and the science is properly understood. And our response will morph with that, as you would expect.

STEFANOVIC: Quarantining at home, when does that happen, Pete?

DUTTON: Well, hopefully sooner than later. I think as quickly as we can. And as the Prime Minister pointed out, if people have had properly recognised vaccine, if they are living in London or the United States or anywhere else in the world and they want to come back home and see family or see their grandparents, bring their newborn grandchild back home, then we want to facilitate that as quickly as possible but we just need to do it in a safe way. And if we are having a situation where people are coming back and bringing the virus back with them, then we will see community transmission. So again, it is trying to get that balance right. But if we can get people away from hotel quarantine into home quarantine and people do the right thing, then you can scale up the numbers obviously much more significantly than if we are just relying on hotels.

STEFANOVIC: Okay. Richard, do you support that plan?

MARLES: Well, we have got to get the population vaccinated. I mean, this is the Prime Minister trying to get through another press conference in the heat of the moment. That is all fine but the precondition to that, as Gladys Berejiklian said, is we need to get our population vaccinated. And it has been a shambles. I mean, America has 190 million people vaccinated out of a population of 328 million. Britain is 39 out of 67 million. We are one out of 25 million. I mean, that’s where we are at. And the idea that we are not going to be vaccinated until the end of 2022 would be an absolute disaster for the Australian economy, and in that sense there is a race going on here and the Federal Government actually has to stand up and take responsibility for this. The criticisms we were making last year was not about the fact that they were spreading risk, they were not in enough queues. We are not in the Moderna queue at all. This government has been complacent in the midst of its self- congratulation.

STEFANOVIC: Peter, Richard makes a good point. And most economists are saying in the SMH this morning at least, tens of billions of-

DUTTON: Sorry, what is his good point? What’s his good point, Karl?

STEFANOVIC: Well that it is costing us-

DUTTON: What are the good points out of what Richard just said?

STEFANOVIC: Okay, I’m going to say what the good point is. That is the longer we go without vaccinations the more it is costing the Australian economy- and that is tens of billions of-

MARLES: He is grumpy this morning. He is really grumpy.

STEFANOVIC: You don’t like a good point?

DUTTON: No, I just- I think Labor is just willing failure here. You know, it becomes a little tiresome. But we will push on. We want to get the economy back open. If you see the unemployment number down to 5.6 per cent yesterday. Quite remarkable the investment that is taking place in the housing industry, just unbelievable and that needs to continue. Because as I say, we want those businesses to stay open so they can employ people and we are vaccinating the most vulnerable at the moment. And we don’t have the situation as they have in the United States or in the United Kingdom- where thousands and thousands of people have died. And in different states the infection rate is still spreading very rapidly.

STEFANOVIC: Someone unfairly said yesterday Pete – and Richard I know you won’t agree with this;  how can the Federal Government be trusted with a vaccination roll-out when they can’t even do a ship launch. I mean, I don’t know who said that.

DUTTON: I knew you were heading there. I knew you were heading there. Get it out of your system, Karl.

MARLES: I have been looking forward to this all morning.

STEFANOVIC: I want you to get it out of your system. What happened?…

LAUGHTER 

STEFANOVIC: Hello. Are you there Pete…?

DUTTON: Are you there, Karl?

MARLES: He has gone completely silent!

DUTTON: Sorry, just watching that footage.

STEFANOVIC: What happened?!

DUTTON: I was watching that footage. It wasn’t a good look, Karl. It is not going to happen again. I have spoken – great man the Chief of Navy but I have made it very clear that that won’t be happening again. And, I’m sorry to you and to Richard and others who have enjoyed the footage but you won’t see that again at a ship launch.

STEFANOVIC: Richard, I can’t stop you from –

DUTTON: Richard, help me out. You and I-

MARLES: I want to thank Peter because this has made my week. And I knew that Peter Dutton was going to make a mark as Defence Minister but legit, I did not expect this. I mean our enemies and our foes out there are going to be twerking in their boots when they see this vision.

DUTTON: It is the element of surprise, Richard. It is the element of surprise, my friend.

STEFANOVIC: It sure is a surprise. Good on you Pete, good on you Richard. Have a great weekend. See you next week.

ENDS