ALI MOORE:
Josh Frydenberg, good morning.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Nice to be with you, Ali.
ALI MOORE:
Another $800 million in joint funding – it’s a lot of money, but, I guess, is it enough? Is it keeping businesses afloat?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
It’s certainly helping to cushion the blow of what are very severe lockdowns, not just in Victoria but what we’ve seen around the rest of the country. In Victoria, we’ve successfully partnered with the State Government to provide almost $2 billion during this most recent outbreak alone, and it’s been a very constructive relationship working with Treasurer Tim Pallas and Martin Pakula on that package, because we recognise that whether you’re a cafe or a hairdresser or a gymnasium or anyone else working in a hospitality or tourism business, you’ve been hit hard by these health restrictions. So, by providing whether it’s $2,800 in a grant or up to $20,000 for larger hospitality venues, that can help you meet some of those fixed costs that are incurred in your business regardless of whether you’ve got traffic coming through your front door – your rent, whether it’s your electricity and your water bills, your insurance expenses and the like. On top of that Ali, we’ve got our COVID disaster payment, supporting more than 330,000 Victorians, of $750 a week, based on the number of hours of work that are being lost.
ALI MOORE:
So how long can you keep funding at that rate?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, we are going to continue to support Victorians through this lockdown and that has been a successful partnership, but what I made very clear yesterday is that states and territories should have no expectation that the significant Commonwealth emergency economic assistance that we’re providing right now will continue indefinitely or at the scale that it is right now when we get to those 70 and 80 per cent targets of vaccination which the Doherty Institute have laid out. Because at that point in time the Doherty Institute, in their words, say that stringent lockdowns become unlikely, that the transmissibility of the virus reduces and that the number of people who are severely ill as a result of COVID also substantially reduces. So, we have to give the listeners to your program this morning some hope that there is light at the end of the tunnel, because if we don’t do that, then businesses that are just hanging on right now will just close up shop. Families who are sitting at home waiting for restrictions to ease, waiting to take their kids back to the playground, waiting for their kids to get back into the classroom, they will become more and more despondent, and we just can’t afford for that to happen.
ALI MOORE:
Is that a threat, though, to the states and particularly ahead of this morning’s National Cabinet meeting, “You’ve got to get into line, because if you’re still talking about lockdowns post 70 per cent, you’re on your own”?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
It’s not a threat. It’s just a reality in which we are. Namely, that State Premiers and Chief Ministers have actually agreed with the Prime Minister on a road map out of this crisis and it is the Doherty Institute modelling of 70 and 80 per cent. The good news, the encouraging news, is that our vaccination rate is increasing very rapidly. We had 309,000 jabs that were delivered in the last 24 hours. That’s 215 a minute. That’s more than three MCGs full on grand final day. It is a remarkable acceleration in the program. We know that more supply is coming on, not just of Pfizer but also of the Moderna vaccine. And what’s particularly pleasing, Ali, is that the vaccine hesitancy around AstraZeneca seems to be ebbing away, because more than 40 per cent of those 309,000 doses were of AstraZeneca and nearly half of those were people under the age of 60.
ALI MOORE:
On that 70 per cent, though, you say 70 to 80 per cent. Is it 70 per cent? Is it 80 per cent? Which?
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Well, we’re shooting for 70 per cent and 80 per cent, but ultimately 70 per cent is the first gate that we need to get through.
ALI MOORE:
Now, that modelling that you’re relying on, the Doherty Institute, there is talk today from a number of health experts that, in fact, the 70 per cent rate is in question because the modelling relied on case numbers that were around 30 a day. There’s 681 cases in New South Wales.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Again, we’re hoping that they will be able to suppress the virus. In Victoria, you are not seeing anything like the number of cases that we’re seeing in New South Wales and…
ALI MOORE:
No, but this 70 or 80 per cent is not a state thing, is it? It’s going to be a national…
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
So, the vaccination rate has a two-tier approach. It’s 70 per cent in those particular state or territory jurisdictions and, at the same time, it’s a 70 per cent national vaccination rate.
ALI MOORE:
Of over 16s.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
Of eligible Australians over 16. Now, as you know, we are waiting on ATAGI advice as to their eligibility of the under Australians to receive the Pfizer vaccine, and we’ll act on that advice when it becomes available. But the key point is we can’t eliminate the virus. Its a fallacy to talk about elimination or expect for us to reach elimination. If you look at the United Kingdom, they have more than 75 per cent double dose vaccination rate, yet they are seeing 30,000 cases a day and they’re seeing more than 100 deaths a day. So, the public have to get used to the fact, even though it might be a very uncomfortable one, that living with the virus means that you will see illness, you will see death, you will see more cases, but it’s really important that we get as many people vaccinated as possible because that mitigates the impact that it has on people’s health.
ALI MOORE:
Federal Treasurer, thanks for joining us.
JOSH FRYDENBERG:
My pleasure.