PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Let's return to the situation in New South Wales. Dr David Gillespie is the new Regional Health Minister. He joins me from Parliament House in Canberra. Welcome to the program.
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Hi Patricia. Pleased to be with you.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
What do you make of Sydney's extended lockdown, including in several regions?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Look, it's unfortunate that they've declared another week because everyone's keen to get back to normal life, but they are concerned about the numbers. The epidemiologist, the experts on these matters, have deemed that there's too much intra-household, and intracommunity spreader, so they've made the call. It is disappointing, but it's better than letting it get out of hand.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
New South Wales Health Minister Brad Hazzard says the state may never control its current COVID-19 outbreak - he said that at the end of the press conference - and be forced to live with the virus for good. What do you make of that?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Well, it's a penetrating glimpse of the bleeding obvious. Yeah, we will have to live with the virus. It is here. It's not going to go away.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
[Talks over] No, no. I don't think- he doesn't just mean generally in terms of another outbreak, he's talking about this outbreak not being brought under control. So it's not really just the bleeding obvious, it is a different insight.
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Look, it's straight talking is what I'd call it. We are controlling the virus by social distancing. Viruses only survive if they could jump into another host, or another person. That's the whole aim of the lockdown. We are getting the rollout. It took 45 days for the first million doses to be delivered, and it took seven days in the- it's going for eight weeks, and the last million doses took a week. So things are ramping up. And as we get vaccination rolled out in an exponential fashion, as more supplies come in with both Pfizer and Moderna and the number of GP practices delivering it as well as pharmacies delivering it, we should get control of the spread of this. But it will be an existential part of everyone's life in the world. Various versions will come and go. And I expect people will expect regular COVID vaccinations in future years like you have flu vaccines.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Yeah absolutely. But just to be clear, this current outbreak in Sydney, do you believe they need to stomp on that, completely crush that before they open up again?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Look, that's a decision what you'd to have the full epidemiological profile. It is a very transmissible virus. They've made the call- look, in my 33 years of clinical practice as a doctor, I always took the advice regarding vaccines from the relevant bodies. They have the contact tracing people advising them as well. They have obviously got this lockdown to try and smother it and reduce it to a trickle of cases. The fact that it's not doubling every day is actually very encouraging, Patricia…
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Alright. Yeah.
DAVID GILLESPIE:
…because if it was out of control, it would be going up exponentially.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
The Australian newspaper is reporting that New South Wales Treasurer Dominic Perrottet strongly opposed the move signed off at the state's crisis Cabinet meeting, saying it was time the state adjusted its thinking to COVID-19. Does he have a point?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Look, that line of argument has a lot of validity, but as I said, the experts have made of the call. The Premier has been advised by them. She wouldn't have done this lightly. New South Wales has been the exemplar estate. They've tried to keep their economy open and isolate and control outbreaks. And they're doing, as I said, a pretty good job, because even though the numbers are there, they're not doubling, so that in itself is a bit of a victory.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Okay. But on that question, what is your view? Do you think that they need to actually have kind of a strategy for squashing this virus, actually completely eradicating it, like, getting it down to zero before they open up again?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
No. Look, that's an unrealistic hope. I mean, Brad is right in that regard. We can never totally eradicate this virus. It's just physically impossible. Unless we have widespread, universal vaccination with vaccines that aren't leaky, that's the gold standard to eradicate, like we did with smallpox and other viruses like that. But with this, unfortunately, it's going to be a part of life. It's going to bubble around the world for many years to come.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
So when you said you had sympathy from that Dominic Perrottet argument that was made, according to The Australian newspaper, in the Cabinet process, what do you mean? What sympathy do you have with that view?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Well, look, these restrictions on movement and business, they have a huge impact. Businesses can't survive forever on government support. We would like them to be able to trade. But each state makes our decisions about their public health orders, and New South Wales has unfortunately, for all those businesses that are keen to get going again, because they've made a call, the risk of it exponentially going through the community when there will- at the moment, you haven't see many deaths or ICU people because the numbers are so small. But if you had 30,000 or 40,000 people a day like this happening is up other countries around the world, you would see those sections of the health system being overwhelmed. So that's what they're trying to avoid.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Okay. We know that the Shellharbour and Wollongong regions will also maintain restrictions. One of the business leaders in Shellharbour was saying they haven't had a case. Do you- and you're obviously the Regional Health Minister federally, do you think that's unfair that those restrictions remain?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Look, I am the Regional Health Minister, but those sort of decisions aren't in my bailiwick.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Yeah, I know it's not your decision to make. Obviously the New South Wales Government makes that call, but you have sympathy with that view?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Yeah I do. Look, if there are no cases, you know, regional New South Wales is still open, and many places around the country are open because they have had few cases. But there must be some rationale behind it, they wouldn't just randomly do it. There must be something behind that decision and I'm not privy to it.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
As well as the Regional Health Minister, you've also been a doctor, as you mentioned. Are you concerned that more than a dozen under 55-year-olds are currently hospitalised with COVID-19 in New South Wales?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Look, it's always disturbing when people end up in hospital. It's the nature of the disease. If enough people get it, they can get very, very ill with it. Many diseases can strike you down, but this is a very transmissible disease that the whole population hasn't got immunity to. That's why it's called a pandemic, because we're not exposed to it. And it behaves like all viruses do, it keeps jumping and exponentially expanding through contact, and that is the whole rationale between social distancing and closing down movement of people on a citywide scale.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Shadow Treasurer Jim Chalmers has pointed the finger at your government for this lockdown, saying you could have rolled out vaccines sooner. How much of the blame are you prepared to take for the slow vaccine rollout?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Well, look the vaccine rollout is gathering pace…
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
[Interrupts] But it's been too slow hasn't it?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Well it's- that is a relative question, everyone would have wished it could have been done sooner, but the fact of the matter is it's been limited by supply of the vaccines that we thought were being brought in from overseas, like about 3.7 million didn't turn up as a result. And the domestic production has ramped up. There has been a bit of vaccine hesitancy as well, which is why the rollout hasn't been as quick. And as I said, the first million doses took 45 days, the last million doses, seven days. And it will exponentially increase once there is more Pfizer and mRNA Moderna type vaccines that you do not have to have a 12-week wait between doses. If we had been in a situation with more mRNA vaccines that have a shorter interval, we would have had a totally different outcome. But we're dealing with what's in front of us. We've got plenty of AstraZeneca, and we're getting exponentially more Pfizer and Moderna in the coming weeks and months.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
We are still last in the OECD for the percentage of the population fully vaccinated, is that a bit embarrassing?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Well, that is because of those things I just explained.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Yeah, but those things have been there for other countries too, but yet there we are, right?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Yeah, well other countries got access to more vaccines because they weren't in this situation- look, there was- there are moral questions [indistinct].
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
[Talks over] But there are other countries who were in a better position like us, who've done better though. Obviously I'm comparing like for like.
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Yeah, well look sure. If that's the case, that's the case. But you've got to deal with what we've got now, we now have production domestically, and we have more and more vaccines that have a shorter interval between the two injections, which will also exponentially ramp things up. So it'll be a different conversation in September or October. When those first figures were printed, there was 4.5 per cent but since then it's now up to 9.6 per cent of the eligible population have had some protection. That's 70 per cent of over 70, 54 per cent of over 50 and anyone over the age of 16, if you take that as a target market, it is about 9.6 per cent. So you can see it has markedly improved as we have got more vaccines and more injectors happening.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has met with business leaders as you know to discuss how they can assist with the vaccine rollout. Why hasn't this been done earlier? I mean the business community has been saying for months even on this programme that they want to be part of this and it makes sense. I get my flu jab at the ABC, it's pretty standard practice. Why didn't we get this ready earlier?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
You mean the incentive programme or vaccinations at the workplaces?
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Just doing it at workplaces, some of the big workplaces.
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Well, look there is a logistical problem, you would have to get a lot of healthcare workers into the workplaces, most of them are centred in these Commonwealth vaccination clinics, in general practitioner clinics, in pharmacies, in the healthcare system. If we had skilled people in those businesses, it's logistically possible. But it is going to be war-gamed. It is an idea that will be analysed. General Frewen will be analysing the logistics of it. But our efforts to vaccinate people were limited, as I said, for that first month and a half, by shortage of vaccines. We would have been six weeks ahead of where we should have been or six weeks ahead of where we are now if we hadn't missed out on those 3.5 million vaccines that were limited by manoeuvres over in Europe.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Just finally and onto something within your own political party rather than the vaccine rollout. The Nationals' top pick for the Senate in New South Wales, Ross Cadell, was the subject of an apprehended domestic violence order application made against him by police on behalf of his former wife. Now he was endorsed by the party despite senior figures being aware of that 2014 AVO application as part of that candidate vetting process. But The Guardian is reporting that grass roots party members who voted on this actually weren't made aware of this AVO application, which I find rather strange. Do you think that's an issue?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Look, I'm not privy to the fine details of the actual AVO details, but yes, the central governing body of every state party has a process. It appears from those comments that some of those people who actually had the vote weren't informed of information that the senior executive did, they must've analysed it. But look, I'm not privy to all the details, it's very hard for me to comment on it without knowing the full details.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
Yeah, but on the principle shouldn't everyone be made aware of something as serious as this before they vote? I mean don't the National take this seriously and believe that this should be something that is considered?
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Look, yes, indeed we do.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
But, it wasn't.
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Every Member of the National Party is universally in chorus, in having appropriate sexual harassments or any violence stamped out in any form of Australian life. There is a unity ticket on that. But the inner workings of an executive analysis of what was presented, I'm not privy to those details. I'd have to defer to the state executive because the details obviously weren't widely distributed. But it may not have been distributed for a very good reason, it was probably discounted. Unless you know the full details, Patricia, it's very hard to pontificate about what should have been done if you're not privy to the details.
PATRICIA KARVELAS:
David Gillespie thanks for joining us.
DAVID GILLESPIE:
Thanks Patricia.
PATRICIA KARVELAS: T
That's Dr David Gillespie, the new Regional Health Minister, just recently sworn in.