The Government’s First Nations vaccine data stuff up
Linda Burney addresses press conference in Sydney (Tuesday 14th of September.)
The question for the federal government today, is how did they get it so wrong? Why are the Victorian figures revealed today as being so so wrong? We know that the reason is because that the Federal Government, something like 12 months ago, changed the way in which Aboriginal identity is recorded on forms. There is a massive couple of questions for the federal government to answer. The first is, how did you get it so wrong? The second is- please release the data that pertains to Victoria and release the data on vaccination rates for First Nation people across the country. The federal government has named its 30 communities for the surge of vaccines today.
How did they come at those 30 communities? What is the modelling? And will it now be revisited, since the vaccination rates for First Nations people in Victoria have been revealed to be much less. Will there be a re-evaluation of those 30 communities, and how on Earth did you come up with the 30 communities on that list? I know for a fact that the Northern Territory communities that were chosen by the federal government were changed by the Territory Government because of local knowledge. It is unacceptable, absolutely unacceptable, that there is not answers that have to be made by the federal government about vaccine rates across communities, how were the 30 communities have been chosen, and most importantly to release the data finally, so the general public can know what the vaccination rates are across communities.
It is available data. Don't you worry about that. It is absolutely available, but the availability of that data has not been made public. And that is, inexcusable in terms of the vaccine rollout for our communities. We are seeing the numbers increase in Western, and far western New South Wales. We look at the 30 communities that were chosen. And you just wonder, how those communities haven’t made it onto the list. You wonder how the inner west of Sydney hasn't made it, and you wonder why the western suburbs of Sydney, where is the largest Aboriginal community in Australia, hasn’t made it onto the list. Why isn’t Central Australia on the list? Why isn’t the APY lands on that list? And it goes on and on and on. I am calling urgently on the federal government to come clean about how the 30 communities were chosen, what the modelling was, what the data is for across the country, and most importantly, to answer how you got it so wrong in Victoria.
LINDA BURNEY
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