State, federal government in tit-for-tat war over vaccine

Queensland’s Deputy Premier Steven Miles has gone on the attack over a lack of certainty around the COVID-19 vaccine rollout.

Deputy Premier Steven Miles has slammed the Federal Government for a lack of certainty around the vaccine rollout, saying Queensland had needed to reserve doses.

But only minutes earlier, Premier Annastacia Palaszczuk had said her government was not stockpiling the jabs.

Mr Miles said there had been no certainty of supply for Queensland’s hospitals.

“That has required the holding back of enough doses to ensure that we can administer the second dose,” he said.

He addressed issues outlined by Nationals Deputy Leader David Littleproud on breakfast television.

Queensland Deputy Premier Steven Miles talks about vaccination at a press conference in Brisbane on Wednesday morning. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Dan Peled

Mr Littleproud accused states of “sitting on their hands” and being too complacent.

“He said that if the federal government needs to do better, then they should get an uppercut. Well, it’s time that he should give himself an uppercut,” Mr Miles said in response to Mr Littleproud’s comments.

“The states are doing what they can with what has been distributed to them.”

It comes after Federal Health Minister Greg Hunt yesterday said the Commonwealth had been stockpiling second doses – meaning every vaccine that a state had could be administered.

The Deputy Premier said every time the Morrison Government wanted to “deflect from their failings”, they launched an attack on states and territories.

“That’s what we’ve seen overnight, an orchestrated attack by Morrison Government Ministers against the state and territories,” he said.

“The Prime Minister committed that three million Australians would be vaccinated by the end of March.

“Well today is the 31st of March and he has fallen 2.4 million short of that target.”

Mr Miles said some hospitals hadn’t found out how many doses were available until the morning they were scheduled to administer them.

He said commitments had now been given for the second doses of the Pfizer vaccine which would allow hospitals to use a greater percentage of stock.

“We would welcome that also for the AstraZeneca vaccine,” he said.

Mr Miles said the public deserved greater transparency around how many vaccines were available, claiming there had been almost no communication from the Commonwealth and that the Prime Minister had not contacted the Premier.

Taking a dig at the Federal Government, saying they had been preoccupied with other issues, the Premier said it was time the government focused on the vaccine rollout.

The Premier defended the rollout, saying 89 per cent of frontline staff in group 1A had received it.