Scott Morrison has defended efforts to protect Indigenous people from coronavirus after the first Aboriginal death sparked heavy criticism of the vaccination rollout.
An unvaccinated man in his 50s who died at Dubbo hospital became Australia’s first Indigenous victim of the disease with an outbreak spreading in western NSW.
The prime minister said an emergency AUSMAT team and Defence personnel had been deployed to the region, working with the state government to boost vaccination rates.
“In many remote communities, because they feel like they’re a long way away from the cities where these things are happening, they can sometimes form a view they are protected,” Mr Morrison told 5AA radio.
“That’s not the case. The Delta variant can travel as we know it does.”
He said the response to the western NSW situation provided a model for other Indigenous communities across Australia.
“Not only is that helping us to directly influence that situation but we have developed a very good partnership model if that were to happen in South Australia, the Northern Territory or Western Australia.”
Labor’s Indigenous Australians spokeswoman Linda Burney said the federal government was squarely to blame for woeful Indigenous vaccination rates.
“This death and these infections could have been prevented. It is too little too late in western New South Wales,” she told reporters.
“We know that the federal government was warned back in March 2020, that this was going to be the outcome, if they did not step in. That is over 12 months ago.”
Just 6.3 per cent of Aboriginal people in western NSW have been fully vaccinated against coronavirus, compared to 26 per cent of the general population.
Ms Burney holds grave concerns for people in the region infected during the outbreak.
“I am terribly afraid, (it) will be the first death of many. I’m not trying to be alarmist. I’m trying to be realistic,” she said.
Nationally, Indigenous vaccination rates have been tracking at about half of the wider population despite being a top priority in the rollout.
Mr Morrison said immunisation coverage was rising in Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities.
AAP
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