Daniel Andrews lashes Liberals over Victoria’s vaccine ‘egg and spoon race’

The prime minister has hit back after Premier Daniel Andrews accused him of offering NSW an unfair share of vaccines and leaving Victorians as “doormats”.

Prime Minister Scott Morrison has hit back after Premier Daniel Andrews accused him of treating Victoria like a doormat and offering NSW an unfair share of vaccines.

It comes after the Herald Sun revealed the number of GPs approved to vaccinate Victorians was held back in July so an extra 260 clinics could be opened in Sydney to increase vaccination rates as the city’s outbreak worsened.

NSW received a whopping 45 per cent of the Pfizer doses allocated to GP clinics in August.

Over five weeks from July 19, GP clinics in 12 Sydney municipalities deemed Covid hot spots received 739,800 vaccine doses — and 715,520 doses were sent to all Victorian GPs.

It meant that, while Victoria was ahead of NSW in the ­vaccination race at the start of August, the state is now three weeks behind, delaying the schedule to reduce restrictions and reopen.

Victoria, Queensland and Western Australia received far less than their fair share.

Mr Andrews said Victorians “would be excused for being quite angry” and said the state could be closer to its vaccination targets if it had received its share of jabs.

“I signed up to the national plan to vaccinate our nation, not a national plan to vaccinate Sydney,” Mr Andrews said.

NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian and Prime Minister Scott Morrison have been slammed. Picture: Bianca De Marchi

“We have seen hundreds of thousands of vaccines that should have come and should now be in the arms of Victorians going into Sydney and into GP practices in NSW.”

The Prime Minister hit back at the impassioned spray, insisting “I don’t share that view.”

NSW was receiving 32 per cent of the national Pfizer vaccine allocation in late June when Sydney’s Covid-19 situation worsened.

That was roughly in line with NSW‘s proportion of the national population, but last month the allocation jumped to 45 per cent.

“This was not announced. This was done without anyone knowing, and the Commonwealth have got caught doing it so it needs to stop,” Mr Andrews said.

“There needs to be a make-good. There needs to be a reckoning where additional doses come to Victoria.”

The Victorian Premier accused the federal government of forcing other states to play an “egg and spoon race” while NSW sprinted ahead.

“Some don’t like to see it as a race, but a race it is,” Mr Andrews said.

“What I don’t know is that Premier Berejiklian is in a sprint, while the rest of us are supposed to do some kind of egg and spoon thing.

A furious Daniel Andrews on Tuesday. Picture: David Crosling

“These allocations are totally unfair and need to stop. We need to get the doses we didn’t get fast tracked to us.

“That’s as constructive as I can be. I want to be plain spoken on these things. I’m not about getting angry for its own sake, but these things need to be called out.”

Scott Morrison hit back at Mr Andrews and rejected suggestions Victoria had been blindsided.

“I don’t share the view,” the Prime Minister told Sky News.

“Victoria had doses brought forward in their cases in their first crisis, and when they were hit again, we brought forward doses.”

Mr Morrison said millions of doses from the UK and Singapore were shared evenly among the states, after a shipment from Poland went to NSW.

“I wasn’t going to have doses moved from other states to NSW, I went out and got more doses from Poland,” he said.

Mr Andrews said he did not wish to quarrel, but said it was important to call out and urged the Commonwealth to rectify the supply issues.

“We are not doormats that will sit here and cop this,” he said.

“We need a square up with this. It is up to the Commonwealth. They designed the system this way and created this problem.”

Year 12 student Charlotte Sherlock received her first vaccine dose. Picture Rebecca Michael.

VICTORIAN GPS FINALLY CATCHING UP

A massive expansion of GP clinics in Victoria’s vaccine rollout will begin next week after federal authorities ­delayed establishing primary care vaccination sites to prioritise ­Sydney hot spots.

From Monday, the federal government will bring online an extra 402 Victorian GPs over two weeks and double the number of doses provided to hundreds of other clinics to 300 a week.

This will open up thousands of appointments for Victorians still waiting to be vaccinated.

Pharmacies were also included in the rollout more quickly in Sydney than in Victoria, sparking concerns within the state government that parts of Melbourne lacked adequate vaccination centres.

Vaccine rollout chief Lieutenant General John Frewen wrote to the Victorian government last week to confirm the focus was now on the state as case numbers climbed.

A Herald Sun analysis shows that, over the past two months, NSW primary care clinics administered 2,951,923 doses, compared with 1,531,370 in Victoria.

Grattan Institute health program director Stephen Duckett said Victoria’s state hubs had performed better than NSW, and the “big difference” was the GP rollout.

“GPs who want to be registered to do AstraZeneca and Pfizer vaccinations have not heard whether their registrations have been approved,” he said. “It’s the Commonwealth not actually making it easy for GPs to give Pfizer.”

At the start of August, 42.4 per cent of Victorians over 16 had received at least one dose, compared with 41.57 per cent of people in NSW.

Since then, vaccination rates have leapt by more than 40 per cent in six regions in NSW, but the highest increase in Victoria was 21.6 per cent in Melbourne’s west.

Now, 74.06 per cent of adults have had a first dose in NSW, compared with 60.75 per cent in Victoria, meaning the 70 per cent mark at which the Victorian Premier has promised to ease some restrictions will not be reached until late September.

In Queenscliffe, 71.8 per cent of those eligible are now fully vaccinated, the first municipality to reach that milestone in Victoria.

There are currently 412 Victorian GPs offering the Pfizer vaccine and 1000 offering AstraZeneca, of which 790 will switch to Pfizer this month.

Scott Morrison last week struck a deal with Britain for four million Pfizer doses, with two planes carrying about 457,000 doses touching down on Sunday.

General Frewen said about a million doses would arrive each week during September, doubling Australia’s expected Pfizer supplies for the month.

“Supply isn’t the great challenge now. It really is about people coming forward,” he said.

Australian Medical Association vice-president Chris Moy said it was important to have “as many arms and hands as possible” administering the vaccine, and GPs would play a crucial role helping those who were “vulnerable and possibly being left behind a bit”.

He said extra clinics could “start to fill in the holes in the population that have really missed out so far”.

Victorian Health Minister Martin Foley said he hoped more Pfizer appointments would be made available through state hubs this week.

Originally published as Daniel Andrews lashes Liberals over Victoria’s vaccine ‘egg and spoon race’