Anthony Albanese will deliver his budget reply speech which is expected to continue the opposition’s attack over sluggish wages growth
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1.39am BST
Labor MP Mark Butler is having a crack at the government for being behind other countries in securing contracts with Moderna.
He welcomes the announcement, but asks why it’s taken so long:
We do welcome the Government’s decision to strike a deal with Moderna, finally, for access to that vaccine but we ask the question why has it taken this long? The Moderna vaccine has been a mainstay of the vaccine rollout strategies of almost every other nation to which we usually compare ourselves. The US struck a deal with Moderna as early as August 2020. Deals were struck last year with Canada, with the UK, with the European Union, Korea, Japan in January, Israel well into last year.
Tens and tens of millions of doses of this state-of-the-art vaccine have already been delivered to the people in those countries, a mainstay part of their vaccine rollout strategy, so if the rest of the world struck deals with Moderna as early as last year for access to this state-of-the-art vaccine, why do Australians have to wait to the end of this year? What happened to Scott Morrison’s promise that Australians were at the front of the vaccine queue?
1.33am BST
I’ll keep posting the odd bit of budget news just to whet your appetite for the reply speech later tonight.
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