The Australian Laywer’s Alliance "Doing More Harm Than Good: The need for a health-focused approach to drug use" report clearly shows that a national approach to harm minimisation is long overdue.  
 
"The legal and medical sectors have been saying for decades that treating drug use as a criminal matter, rather than a health issue does not work", Australian Greens Health spokesperson Senator Rachel Siewert said today. 
 

The Greens say that the Government will miss out on opportunities to expand and diversify Australia’s vaccine portfolio if they don’t invest in public capacity to produce mRNA vaccines

The Greens say quarantine facilities need to be established out of cities and that facilities must be publicly funded and run. 

“Our hotel quarantine system needs to be watertight. The UK, South Africa, Brazil variants are becoming the dominant variants in other parts of the world and we must keep these from getting out into our community”, Greens spokesperson on Health Senator Rachel Siewert said

The Greens welcome the news that AstraZeneca has been provisionally approved by the Therapeutic Goods Administration for use in Australia.
 
“However we cannot put all our eggs in one basket. It’s clear with differing rates of efficacy and with new Covid-19 strains developing that we must continue to expand and diversify Australia’s vaccine portfolio”, Australian Greens spokesperson on Health Senator Rachel Siewert said.
 

The Greens say the suspension of the AstraZeneca vaccine roll-out in South Africa shows the need for the government to establish a publicly-owned mRNA vaccine manufacturer in Australia.

Australia needs to be nimble and able to quickly adapt vaccines to ever-mutating strains of COVID, which would only be possible with a local, publicly owned facility that puts health, not profits, first.

Leader of the Australian Greens Adam Bandt MP said:

The Greens say that the Government must continue to expand and diversify Australia’s vaccine portfolio immediately in light of the varying rates of effectiveness of vaccines against new strains. 
 
“We cannot rely on AstraZeneca as our only contingency plan - we need to have a diverse portfolio to rapidly pivot to deal with new strains, including securing deals with Moderna and more Pfizer doses", Greens spokesperson on Health Senator Rachel Siewert said. 
 

The Greens have called upon the Prime Minister to boot Craig Kelly from his role chairing a parliamentary committee, following weeks of disinformation intended to undermine the medical response to coronavirus.

The Greens say that decades of decline in Australian manufacturing puts the nation at risk of having fewer options when it comes to Covid-19 vaccines, and have called for a publicly-owned vaccine manufacturer.

Both Pfizer/BioNTech and Moderna vaccines are based on new technology (mRNA), and while CSL has capacity to manufacture the protein based vaccines it doesn’t at this time have the ability to produce mRNA.

 
The Greens recognise the potential role of e-cigarettes in tobacco harm reduction but support a precautionary approach in the regulation of e-cigarettes.

The Greens support the recommendations of the majority Select Committee on Tobacco Harm Reduction report and have made some additional comments.