Prime Minister
TRACY GRIMSHAW: Prime Minister, thank you for your time. Two weeks into this Sydney lockdown and the numbers keep going up, the banks are now offering loan deferrals. It feels like we're in it for the long haul. Do you think that's what Sydney should be bracing for?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we'll keep watching the information day by day and every day we comply with these new restrictions is a day closer to coming out of them. And, it's a bit hard to say at this point, and it's for the Premier to ultimately make those judgements. But, we’ve just got to keep pushing through. Hopefully it's as a, it's as brief as it can be, but as long as it has to be to ensure that we suppress the virus and this most recent outbreak and we're able to get back to where we were a few weeks ago. New South Wales has had a great record here. But, as a fellow Sydneysider, we've just got to push through. I know people are tired and I know they're frustrated. That's understandable. But, what we all need to do now as Sydneysiders is pull through, not just for New South Wales and Sydney, but for the whole country. The Sydney economy is incredibly important to the national economy. And, so, we've all got a job to do here for Australia.
GRIMSHAW: When Melbourne locked down for months last year, there was full JobKeeper and full JobSeeker available. There were rent suspensions, for example, and businesses currently have to find their rent. People who can't work have to find their rent. They don't have help really for that now. Are you going to have to offer more help if this drags on, which it appears it might?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we are providing that help. I mean, the help we’re providing to people at, the $500 payment is what JobKeeper was being provided at the end of the JobKeeper program and that's, we've relaxed the restrictions now, going into the third week. There is no what's called the liquid assets test - how much money you’ve got in the bank ...
GRIMSHAW: Sure.
PRIME MINISTER: … So, people can access that payment now - $500 and $325. So, that's what was being provided under JobKeeper at the end of the program, and that's been put in place now. And, we're working with the New South Wales State Government, should they be in a position where they have to go further to look at additional measures ...
GRIMSHAW: What measures?
PRIME MINISTER: … And, but what's important is that we seek to get out of it. Well, that's what we're working through with the New South Wales State Government to support businesses and support the New South Wales economy should further restrictions be required. But, right now, we're providing that direct household support and people can access those payments, just like people do after a natural disaster. That's exactly the same method we're using. You call the number and you can access the payment.
GRIMSHAW: Prime Minister, at the start of Melbourne's second wave, roughly a year ago, the Victorian Government locked thousands of people into high rise public housing towers. In Sydney, we can still buy shoes and homewares if we think that they are necessary. Is it lock down light here? Have we not gone hard enough?
PRIME MINISTER: I think the decision that has been taken by the New South Wales Government has been very carefully calibrated to the, to the advice that they have and the situation they face. And, New South Wales has never been the state which is instinctively with the first reaction gone to those sorts of measures, and that's been very good for the national economy and the Sydney economy. And, what's, what the challenge has been here in Sydney over the course of the last, particularly 10 days or so, has been compliance with the restrictions that were there. So, it's important that that compliance kicks in, and the Premier's gone further today, and I think they were wise judgments. And, so, compliance is what we have to do in Sydney. We've got to stick to the rules that have been set because if we don't do that, then obviously that makes coming out of this lockdown more difficult.
GRIMSHAW: Today you reassured Australians that we have 2,020 spare ventilators, which I know was supposed to be comforting, but frankly, it was a chilling moment for me. I mean, given that the UK and the US are busy opening up, why are we still locking down and counting ventilators?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, that was simply an assurance that we are continuing to ensure that we have a public health response in our hospitals that you would expect governments to be checking in on. Now, I don't envisage that they will be necessary at all, but I think it's wise. And, I think, I would hope that that would be reassuring that our governments are always looking at this, as I know the UK Government is, because in the UK now, their focus is not on managing cases. They had as many cases in one day this week that we've had over the entire 18 months. Their focus now is on hospitalisations and serious illness. And, we'll have to wait and see what their most recent decisions will mean for that. But, here in Australia, we haven't had the rate of death. I mean, we've saved 30,000 lives here in Australia by the response that we've had as Australians. That's put us in a very strong position from a health perspective and also from an economic perspective. We've had a million jobs come back into the economy. We’ve got more jobs now in the economy than we did before the pandemic hit. So Australia, globally, has performed well, and we need to now get everybody vaccinated as quickly as we can by the end of the year. And, we believe that at the rates we're hitting now, that tomorrow we'll be in a position where we would have hit a million doses in a week. Now, at that rate, we get this job done.
GRIMSHAW: We're still behind those big countries in our vaccine rollout. Have we, have we squandered our advantage by putting so much faith in one vaccine, that we can make here, that has been beset by problems? I mean, everyone's a genius in hindsight, Prime Minister, but if you could go back a year, would you have bought more Pfizer?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, we bought 20 million Pfizer and we were able to upgrade that to 40 million Pfizer, and as we've announced today, we've been working hard to bring those Pfizer's forward because of the challenges that have been with AstraZeneca. Let's, now let's note that the AstraZeneca vaccine is what's vaccinated the United Kingdom - 44 million doses of the AstraZeneca vaccine in the United Kingdom. They haven't been vaccinated by the Pfizer vaccine. Now …
GRIMSHAW: Well, I think they’ve used something like 30 million Pfizers, haven’t they? I'm sorry to interrupt you. We've only got limited ...
PRIME MINISTER: … 44, AstraZeneca has been, I know, the AstraZeneca is the workhorse of the UK vaccination. That's undisputed. AstraZeneca has also been an important part of our vaccination programme. We purchased additional Pfizer. We have the Moderna vaccine, the Novavax vaccine, all of these vaccines. And, the Pfizer we've been able to bring those forward. We’ll be at 4.5 million doses next month that we have available. This month, 2.8 million; 1.7 [million] last month. So, we're ramping that up to a million a week in just a few weeks’ time. So, we've had challenges. We've got on top of them. We're hitting the marks we need to to get the job done.
GRIMSHAW: I understand all of that, Prime Minister, but we signed the deal to buy our first 10 million Pfizers in November of last year when something like 30 odd countries were already ahead of us in the queue and they'd already signed the deal for something like a billion doses. So, we were behind the eight ball from the beginning with mRNA vaccines, and AstraZeneca has proven to be a problem, hasn't it? There's AstraZeneca hesitancy.
PRIME MINISTER: Well, what I would encourage people to do, if you're aged over 60, go and get your AstraZeneca vaccine. That is the most important population that we need to vaccinate in this country. We've got almost three quarters of the population has now been vaccinated aged over 70 on their first dose, and we need them now to go back and get their second dose. And, even still, we've had people under the age of 60, many have had the AstraZeneca vaccine. And, so, it has been an important part of the vaccine programme. It is still an important part of the vaccine programme. And, I would encourage anyone to continue to support it because it is a key part of how we get to where we all want to get to as a country. The Pfizer vaccine is also an important part, that's kicking in more now. Of course, we've had those challenges with AstraZeneca, and there are wisdom, there is wisdom in hindsight, as you say, Tracy. But, Australia is in a position now where we're hitting the rates of vaccination which gets this job done.
GRIMSHAW: We spoke with Lieutenant General Frewen on the program last week and he alluded to a measure of vaccine hesitancy among over 70s in Australia, and there's something like 30 per cent of over 70s who haven't been vaccinated. Do you know what percentage of those don't want the vaccine?
PRIME MINISTER: It's a small proportion, as I understand it, but we've got, as I just said, almost 75 per cent of the over 70 population vaccinated. Every single aged care facility in the country has had two dose visits, two dose visits. And, one of the key things we’ll be looking at with the four phase plan I outlined last Friday is it's not just the overall population vaccination rates that are important, but it's also those over 70. And, over 70 per cent, almost three quarters of our population aged over 70 now that have had that first dose, and it's still rising. That I, it's demonstrating that the programme is really getting into those groups as it, as it needs to to have the broader protection for the whole population.
GRIMSHAW: How close to 100 per cent can you get it? Have you done the, have you looked at the data on that?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, no country is going to get to 100 per cent …
GRIMSHAW: Of over 70s.
PRIME MINISTER: ... just like no country is going to completely eradicate the virus. No, but no country’s going to get to 100 per cent there either, Tracy. I mean, this is one of the myths that go around in the vaccination debate around the world. I mean, there's only one country in the world that has a two dose vaccination rate higher than 65 per cent, and that's Israel. Not even the United Kingdom has reached that. And, in the city of London, the vaccination rates in the United Kingdom are less than 60 per cent. So, I think we've got to get a bit of perspective here. Other countries are moving forward with opening up because they've had millions of people who have actually contracted the virus, and so there's more antibodies that are there in that population in countries that have been riddled with COVID. I'll tell you one league table where we sit very strongly on, and that is the low number of deaths in this country. And, frankly, that has always been our country's focus at a state and federal level - that we didn't want to see the tens of thousands, and indeed, in some cases millions of deaths we've seen overseas country occur here in Australia. And, we have seen our economy, the OECD just this week highlighted Australia is one of the best performing countries in the world in COVID getting jobs back into the economy. So, more jobs and less deaths. That's what we've delivered.
GRIMSHAW: You talked today about incentives for workforces to be, particularly the aged care workforce I think was the context today, to be jabbed.
PRIME MINISTER: Specifically, yeah.
GRIMSHAW: What sort of incentives are you looking at?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, it was raised by Premier McGowan today and whether there'd be something like retail vouchers or things like that, working with the corporate sector. We had a roundtable with Lieutenant General Frewen and the Treasurer this week that was looking at ways that the business sector can support. So, this was, I thought, a good suggestion, and we'll run it to ground through General Frewen with the corporate sector, following up on that roundtable. That roundtable also led, and the Treasurer Josh Frydenberg this week also got on the phone to the banks to ensure, particularly here in New South Wales and Sydney, that the same leeway that was being provided in Victoria and other places is also going to be provided here in New South Wales. So, you just got to work the problem, that's what we're doing. And, I'm going to keep working the problem, keep trying to get Australia moving forward, keep people in jobs, keep people safe. That's what we've been delivering. We’ve still got a way to go, but we're faring better than most and almost all around the world when it comes to those key markers of saving lives and saving livelihoods.
GRIMSHAW: Ok. Thanks for your time, Prime Minister.
PRIME MINISTER: Thanks very much.