Brad Hazzard attacks Greg Hunt over COVID vaccine rollout figures

Health Minister Brad Hazzard has publicly accused Greg Hunt of a ‘breach of faith’ over the release of vaccine distribution figures that suggested the speed of the rollout was the state’s fault.

HEALTH Minister Brad Hazzard has launched an extraordinary attack on his federal counterpart over the vaccine rollout, publicly accusing Greg Hunt of a “breach of faith” after information about how many doses delivered to NSW was released.

The NSW government has joined Queensland in publicly admonishing the Morrison government after The Daily Telegraph revealed a number of states have delivered barely half of the vaccine doses they have received.

Mr Hazzard on Wednesday accused the federal government of “dumping” tens of thousands of vaccine doses on the states with little warning.

He said NSW last week expected 13,000 doses from the commonwealth but actually got 45,000 doses.

“Well, you get 45,000 items dumped on your front door at night and (are) told ‘well now you should have it out by the next morning’, no one would be able to do that,” he said.

”Extremely angry”: Health Minister Brad Hazzard publicly criticised the Federal vaccine rollout at a press conference today. Picture: NCA NewsWire / Damian Shaw

However, the figures obtained by The Daily Telegraph show NSW actually had about 95,000 doses remaining as of the end of week five, which could not be explained by one unexpected delivery of 45,000.

Mr Hazzard also accused Mr Hunt of releasing the vaccine distribution figures to criticise a particular jurisdiction.

“I’ve let Greg Hunt know my anger and agitation. And he’s provided a justification, which I don’t accept.

“It had little to do with us, actually, it had to do with another area of the country,” Mr Hazzard said.

“I’m extremely angry. And I know there are other health ministers in the country who share similar views.”

Premier Gladys Berejiklian said NSW has administered “around 100,000” doses of the 300,000 doses the state was asked to deliver.

She said NSW is happy to deliver more doses but needs to know how many we are set to receive.

She also argued that delivering jabs at short notice is impossible.

She alleged figures printed in The Telegraph were “untrue” but failed to say how many doses NSW has received from the federal government.

Mr Hazzard complained it was “offensive” for the information to be dropped into the public, but he did not dispute the figures.

At a national cabinet meeting in early March after the first week of vaccine rollout data had highlighted the states’ varying degrees of success, the premiers agreed to no longer publish dose delivery information.

Instead the public would only be informed of jabs in arms.

Mr Hazzard said last week NSW had expected 13,000 doses, but instead received 45,000, however it is this type of data states have agreed not to transparently provide to help people better understand the rollout.

Ms Berejiklian has previously said her government would be happy to publicly state what percentage of doses received have been administered by NSW authorities.