I'm speaking from my home in lockdown, as greater Sydney has entered its sixth week of lockdown. Millions of people are under stay-at-home orders as the virus circulates in our community Tragically, people are dying because vaccinations haven't been provided even to essential workers who have to leave home and are expected to stoically put their health and that of their families at risk. It was heartbreaking to hear today of the death of 27-year-old Aude Alaskar, who collapsed in his Warwick Farm unit.

The Greens say the absence of children under 16 in the latest vaccine rollout plans shifts baselines and according to recent studies risks thousands of deaths.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt, pressed the Prime Minister in question time today as to why he is not including children in his vaccination target.

Leaving children out of the measured cohort effectively changes the baseline, and if that means we’re targeting closer to 65% of the population, rather than 80%, a study by the Grattan Institute suggests that would likely mean thousands of deaths.

The Australian Greens have joined calls for the Prime Minister to release Doherty Institute modelling used to justify national vaccine targets that have been agreed in-principle by the National Cabinet.

The National Vaccine Strategy should be adapted to reflect the changing nature of the pandemic, which is increasingly putting young people and casual workers at risk, the Greens have said.

The Greens also welcome the decision by the Therapeutic Goods Administration to provisionally approve the use of the Pfizer vaccine for children aged between 12 to 15 years old. This decision was made following careful evaluation of the available data supporting safety and efficacy.

Quotes attributable to the Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP:

The Greens are calling on the Federal Government to commit to funding a pay increase for aged care workers saying the Government should have done this in the recent budget.

Thursday 1 July, 2021

Australian Greens Disability spokesperson Senator Jordon Steele-John said it was outrageous that less than 1 in 5 disabled people, and our support workers, in phase 1a and 1b had been vaccinated, more than 4 months after the rollout begun.

Senator Steele-John said the Morrison government should have made a plan to vaccinate disabled people and disability support workers in April when it was revealed that less than 10 per cent had been vaccinated.

The Greens say the Government need to address continuing uncertainty over the vaccine roll out. There are supply, delivery and hesitancy issues plaguing the rollout that need urgent attention and actions in the face of the delta variant.

In light of the highly transmissible Delta strain now in the community, the Greens say it's a shocking failure of leadership of the Morrison Government that they haven’t required an update of  Australia’s infection prevention and control guidelines to address airborne transmission and ventilation in hotel quarantine.  
 
I have been asking the Government about these guidelines for months and months and now here we are with the Delta variant in the community and no update to the national guidelines for how quarantine hotels should manage airborne transmission. 
 

The Greens have criticised changes to the Private Health Insurance Act 2007 which passed the Senate last night saying they set a dangerous precedent for how disabled people can access Private Health Insurance. 
 
Under these changes Australian Greens Senator Jordon Steele-John, who is not yet a participant of the NDIS, would not be considered a disabled person.
 
Greens spokesperson on Health Senator Rachel Siewert said: 
I am disappointed to see that the Government has succumbed to the pressure of private health insurers.

Greens Leader Adam Bandt says the Prime Minister must instruct his Health Minister to stop giving mixed messages on vaccines that could delay the national rollout.