Press Conference - Canberra, ACT
11 December 2020
PRIME MINISTER: Good morning. I'm joined by the Health Minister, Greg Hunt, and Professor Murphy, Secretary of the Department of Health but, most importantly, leading our technical advisory group when it comes to Australia's vaccine policy and strategy. So, welcome to both of you gentlemen this morning. The platform, the foundation, of Australia's performance during the course of the COVID-19 pandemic has been the strong health system that Australia has and that we have strengthened over the course of this COVID-19 pandemic. A strong health system federally, a strong health system at a state level. And I thank all of our state and territory jurisdictions. I'm meeting with them later today as part of the National Cabinet for our last meeting this year. It has been a team effort as we've worked hard to provide that strong health platform upon which Australia's economic comeback has also been conditional upon. The key part of that process of ensuring that our health system has been strong is that we've had a clear plan, and that plan has been based on the best possible medical advice and scientific advice. And it's a plan that has enabled us to move swiftly and decisively in response to events as they have unfolded. The COVID-19 pandemic writes its own rules. We don't get to write those rules for it. We need to be able to adapt and respond, consistent with the plan that we've developed in partnership with our medical and scientific experts.
Our vaccine strategy and our vaccine policy had identified four vaccines that we believed, based on the scientific advice, had the potential to go through to the end of Stage 3 trials and be available here in Australia. At no stage, can I assure you, that we believed that all four of those vaccines would likely get through that process. If that had occurred, that would have been truly extraordinary, based on the process of vaccine development not only in this country, but anywhere else. So that's why we spread our risk. That's why we backed important projects. And that's why we pre-prepared to ensure that we could deal with any issues along the way. The advice that we have received, and the National Security Committee of Cabinet met this week and made the final decision yesterday, is that the University of Queensland vaccine will not be able to proceed based on the scientific advice, and that will no longer feature as part of Australia's vaccine plan.
I do want to thank, though, Professor Paul Young and all the team up there at University of Queensland for the amazing work that they have done in getting the vaccine to that stage. And we will continue to support and fund the work that they're doing on molecular clamp research on vaccines, which has application in many other areas. They're doing great work. They are amazing. I'm incredibly proud of all of our scientists for the awesome work that they've been doing to support us this year. And so I congratulate them and thank them for all the hard work they've put in this year. But as part of our strategy, it means that we've been able to reposition and redeploy both our resources and our capability to deliver these vaccines. And so we are increasing our production and purchase of AstraZeneca vaccines from 33.8 million to 53.8 million, and we're increasing our access to the Novavax vaccine from 40 million to 51 million. So that's an extra 20 million doses of AstraZeneca, and an extra 11 million doses of Novavax. The AstraZeneca vaccine, of course, is manufactured here in Melbourne by CSL.
Safety and health - that has always been the starting point for all of our responses when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic. Having a clear plan. Getting clear advice. Making decisive decisions to ensure that we can put the health interests of Australians first. That lays the platform for the economic recovery that we are undertaking right now as we end this year and go into 2021. I particularly want to thank the Minister for Health, whose leadership in this area over the course of this year has been exemplary. He is one of the standout Health Ministers of the world in terms of how he has led our response and put Australia in such a strong position to be where we are as we go into this Christmas. He has obviously also been ably assisted by Professor Kelly as the Acting Chief Medical Officer and Professor Murphy as the Secretary of the Department of Health. They're a great team, and I thank them for their work and I'll ask the Minister to speak and then Professor Murphy.
THE HON. GREG HUNT MP, MINISTER FOR HEALTH: Thanks very much, Prime Minister, and Professor Murphy. The hallmark of Australia's outcomes this year at a time when we see over 600,000 cases a day, agonising losses at record levels in terms of lives around the world, and Australia, by comparison, in the fortunate position of most days zero cases of community transmission. That's been driven by the combination of following the science and scientific advice, and planning, planning, planning. Today is another step in that. The vaccine rollout in 2021 is an important part of providing insurance and protection and saving lives and protecting lives here in Australia. The net result of the decisions taken and the next evolution of the scientific advice is that we will have strengthened our position in two vaccines and discontinued the process in relation to one vaccine which is, of course, the University of Queensland. The final outcome from all of that is that there is the potential for slightly earlier completion of the vaccine rollout for Australians in 2021. So that net result is a very important outcome for Australians.
Very briefly, I think it's important to understand that we planned, in all of our contracts, for the potential either to discontinue, based on the scientific advice and gateways, or to expand the number of vaccines. So, for example, as the Prime Minister mentioned, we're increasing our AstraZeneca purchasing by 20 million units. That was envisaged within the contract. Those 20 million units have now been agreed in conjunction with CSL to be produced onshore here in Australia, which is what allows us to potentially bring forward the completion of our vaccine rollout in the course of 2021. At the same time, the Novavax contract allowed for us to expand, and we've done that. In addition to that, the contract with regards to the University of Queensland recognised a series of gateways, and the simple answer is that, in relation to that, it's been shown to be safe, it's been shown to be effective. It's a powerful and important breakthrough as a platform, and we thank our scientists for that. But the issue, which by mutual agreement with CSL led to the decision not to proceed to Stage 3 trials and, therefore, not to move to a purchase, is that there was the risk of false-positive HIV results. They are false. It comes from the protein that was used. And as a result of that, the scientific advice is that the risk to vaccine confidence was the principal issue here, and we made the decision unanimously as a National Security Committee, the scientific advice was unanimous, the agreement with CSL not to proceed was mutual. And this is the scientific process working. It's the planning process working. It's an honest explanation of some of the challenges we've had. But, at the end of the day, 31 million new vaccines purchased for Australia, and the potential for a slightly earlier completion of the rollout with the commencement process still on track for March, subject to the approvals and the news on our vaccine candidates is strong.
Just to let you know, all up, the Australian vaccine portfolio is 53.8 million AstraZeneca units. That's enough to cover the whole of population. 51 million Novavax units, that's enough to cover the whole of population. 10 million Pfizer units, which is the advice that we have is appropriate, and 25.5 million units available under the COVAX facility. So, all up, over 140 million units of vaccine available to Australia, and the advice I have is that this is one of the highest ratios of vaccine purchases and availability to population in the world. So we're in a strong position. We're in a slightly better position at the end of this week in terms of having shored up our candidates. But also having made decisions as to what we proceed with and what we don't, and the potential for a slightly earlier completion during the course of 2021. Professor Murphy.
DR BRENDAN MURPHY, SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: Thanks, Prime Minister and Minister. So, we are in a good place in Australia with our vaccine strategy. Of the four vaccines that we did advance purchases on, two are probably the most advanced in terms of Phase 3 data and likely to be, or already are, registered in other parts of the world. We went into this with the potential that none of the four might actually get through to the clinic. That's why we had the COVAX facility to back us up. So to have full population coverage of two vaccines, and local manufacturing of one of the most promising vaccines so that we can guarantee we'll get it when we need it. And we've got also that wonderful position, we are in a Australia, where we can take our time to do the proper regulatory and go through our normal regulatory process. We don't need emergency approval, we're in a good position because we've controlled the virus. So I'm very confident now, very confident about the successful vaccination strategy that we'll be facing next year.
Clearly, the discontinuation of the UQ vaccine by mutual agreement. It was likely to be a promising vaccine. It was likely to work. But we knew that we didn't want to have any issues with confidence, and this false-positive test may have caused some confusion and lack of confidence, but it was a very, very good technology, it was looking like it was going to make antibodies, and it probably would have worked very well as a vaccine. But we can't have any issues with confidence, and we are as a nation now, with a good portfolio of vaccines, able to make these decisions to best protect the Australian people. I'll leave it for questions.
JOURNALIST: [Inaudible] there could be this HIV false-positive of results, if you will. Right at the beginning of trials. So this has been known about CSL's tests for a long time. So why decide to pull the pin now, after hundreds of millions of dollars have been spent?
DR BRENDAN MURPHY, SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: So I think the risk of actually getting a false-positive was seen to be extremely low at the outset, everyone was very surprised at the unexpected prevalence of the false-positive. It's only a small portion of the HIV protein that's in the vaccine as the molecular clamp. The modelling at the time thought it was a very low theoretical risk on that basis, that's why people were informed of that risk. But it was very surprising to CSL and UQ the incidence of the false-positives. So it was very unexpected.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, what's your message to Australians who might be worried about how quickly these vaccines have been rolled out? Is this a good example of the fact that Australia won't be rushing this process if there is any risk - the government won't allow these vaccines to proceed?
PRIME MINISTER: I think today, and the decisions we've taken should give Australians great assurance, that we are proceeding carefully, we are moving swiftly, but not with any undue haste here. At the end of the day, the Therapeutic Goods Administration - like with any vaccine in Australia - it must have their tick-off. Without the tick, there's no jab, when it comes to vaccines in this country. That is true for the COVID-19 vaccine, as it is true for any other vaccine that is administered here in Australia. And the assurance, I think, of both the scientific and medical advice that we have going into this process - led by Professor Murphy, who I know Australians have great confidence in, but also Professor Skerritt and the whole team - we are moving as promptly as is responsible, but our processes will not be compromised. And we've all had vaccinations at various times in our lives. I have. My children have. And we take those vaccines in great confidence of the system that we have here in Australia. What you're seeing here, is the system at work, protecting Australians, and making good decisions in the public health interest. So that's why we were so keen to keep Australians up to date here this morning - so you know where we're at. But the truth is, we're on track. The system's working as it should. And Australians are protected, as always.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, until this morning, the UQ vaccine was the highest in terms of dosage - 51 million doses across your four. So there's no doubting this is a significant blow. And given the concerns over global manufacturing, how confident are you that the agreements you've now reached to boost the supply of Oxford AstraZeneca, particularly in Melbourne, can be reached?
PRIME MINISTER: Yes, it can. But I disagree with the premise of your question. I think what this demonstrates is the effectiveness of our strategy. And what we can do is vaccinate our population twice over. And we have one of the highest ratios of availability of doses of any country in the world. So this is a demonstration of the success of the vaccination policy and approach that we have been following. We have prepared for this. We have planned for this. And now we're making decisions in accordance with this. And so I think this does demonstrate both the science that we have available in Australia, but also the manufacturing capability. CSL is a leading manufacturer in the world. The Minister and I have both visited the facility there, and I want to thank everyone down at the plant there because they're going to be busy, they're going to be producing those vaccines. And as the Minister said, the net out-take of this is we are more likely to have the entire population vaccinated earlier rather than later, by the ability to bring this manufacturing capability forward. The process for manufacturing the molecular clamp vaccine - actually more complicated than it is for AstraZeneca. So this is basically adding on to the existing run, as opposed to a completely different manufacturing process. So that puts us in, I think, a strong position.
JOURNALIST: A question on the science I think for Professor Murphy, and on the timing,
PRIME MINISTER: On the what sorry?
JOURNALIST: On the timing, on this issue of being slightly earlier - how do we know that the same kind of issues aren't going to come up with those other vaccines contenders? What's the difference between the platform at UQ and what you've got, or what the other contenders are, with Nova, and with AstraZeneca? Because if there is this ambition to be slightly earlier with the timing, that seems to be counterintuitive. Shouldn't this experience be a cause for greater caution and a slowdown?
DR BRENDAN MURPHY, SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: Well, I think the AstraZeneca vaccine is now, with published Phase 3 trials. So it's very close to being, having emergency registration in the UK, we believe. So that vaccine - which is the one that's being now produced at CSL - it's coming off the production line at the moment, has very, very good data. So we're pretty confident that an issue like this is unlikely to happen because we've got the Phase 3 data. The Novavax platform is very different. It doesn't use the same molecular clamp - it uses a different approach. There's no reason why we would expect the same thing. And they've published their Phase 1 studies, and they haven't realised any of these sort of issues. So the confidence about, that Minister Hunt talked about - because the AstraZeneca vaccine is more advanced in its development than UQ was, and because it's now in production, by making more of it, we can bring forward whole-of-population coverage with the AstraZeneca vaccine much earlier. The Pfizer vaccine - the other one we have - it has also got Phase 3 trial information that the company has released. It's also gone through regulatory approval in, now, two countries, and a third coming up today. So it wouldn't have got through that if an issue like this had happened. So we're very confident we won't see this issue with the other vaccines. Novavax still has to publish Phase 3 trials, and we'll await those. But we know that Pfizer and AstraZeneca are in a very strong position.
JOURNALIST: Do we still have to pay the full amount even though it’s been, the trials been abandoned now?
PRIME MINISTER: Well we are continuing to support the research at a scientific level with the University of Queensland and I do want to say again to those UQ researchers, I mean, they will certainly be disappointed because they’ve worked so hard at this. But a key part of their scientific work continues. But all of this is done within the fiscal envelope that we have set aside for our vaccination policy. So there's no additional cost here. But as we've worked through the vaccines, I think it's important to just get a dose of reality on this: COVID-19 - many uncertainties, developing vaccines - many uncertainties, and you make calculated decisions about how you pursue particular vaccines based on the best scientific advice. And that is done on the basis of, in the full knowledge that not all of them, the likelihood of all of them being able to proceed, that was not our expectation. So what has happened today is not a surprise to the government, but what is important is that the plan was in place to deal with this, and that was inevitable, most likely that there would be these types of decisions along the way. And the fact that we could move our production, that we have put ourselves in a position to be able to change the number of doses and increase them from the various options that we have, I think demonstrates the importance of the policy and the approach we've taken.
THE HON. GREG HUNT MP, MINISTER FOR HEALTH: And just on your point, the structure of all of these agreements is that they have what are called milestone payments. And so obviously there's a fee in relation to the research, which we were very happy to contribute. But we don't have to make all the other payments because it hasn’t proceeded to phase three, let alone production or distribution.
PRIME MINISTER: [Inaudible] very cautious contracting.
JOURNALIST: And how much is that worth?
THE HON. GREG HUNT MP, MINISTER FOR HEALTH: Within our vaccine envelope, even with the new acquisitions. So at this stage, there's no extra cost to Australia.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister It seems that the extra supplies that we've ordered to make up the 51 million shortfall from CSL. Why is Pfizer not part of this new order? And are there any concerns about the supply of the Pfizer vaccine, considering President Trump signed an executive order this week mandating that US pharmaceuticals prioritise the US?
PRIME MINISTER: Well I don't have those concerns.
THE HON. GREG HUNT MP, MINISTER FOR HEALTH: No, we’ve spoken with Pfizer. I've spoken with the Australian CEO, their advice to us only in the last few days is that they're still on track for delivery in Australia. Our volumes and our vaccine selection are based on the scientific advice and we're very happy with the balance that we've got. And again, a reaffirmation from the Australian CEO that we're on track for first quarter delivery from Pfizer next year.
PRIME MINISTER: [Inaudible] got a deal.
JOURNALIST: Can I just clarify the timeline. So you knew that there was potential for these HIV false positives, but there was a slim chance of them happening. When did you find out that they had occurred? How many occurred? And when did you find out that information enough for you to make this decision?
THE HON. GREG HUNT MP, MINISTER FOR HEALTH: So this week was when we had a briefing in relation to the potential to advance to stage three. We had that on Monday, considered in terms of the National Security Committee, which immediately requested advice from the Scientific and Technical Advisory Group, which is led by Professor Murphy. And then that advice was provided yesterday to the National Security Committee, which made the decision in conjunction with CSL not to proceed.
JOURNALIST: ...216 participants returned false positive?
THE HON. GREG HUNT MP, MINISTER FOR HEALTH: So I don't have that information because there's a mixture of people who receive the vaccine and those that have a placebo. And amongst those that had the vaccine, they would have been different results. So that would be for the University of Queensland, I apologise.
JOURNALIST: ...vaccine diplomacy going on around the world. China moved its vaccine into Indonesia in fairly large quantities earlier this week, you've announced money in the Budget to go towards Pacific Islands, South East Asian nations. Can you tell us what the plans are for those countries? Who's going to get it and when would they get it in terms of the priority against Australians?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, Australians are obviously our first priority. There's no question about that. And what I'd, I'd describe it more this way. You heard me say this some some months ago. And I've said it at G20 summits and many other places, whoever develops the vaccine has got to share it with the world. There's no politics in this. This is helping the rest of the world and particularly the developing countries of the world, to get access to vaccines. So we welcome, we welcome, whether it's China providing support for vaccines in Indonesia or Australia providing supports to the Pacific Islands community or South East Asia or European countries supporting in Africa or the United States in South America or wherever happens to be. This is the world at work to try and ensure that we can provide the best possible health support to people wherever they are in the world. And I think it's a great determined effort across all of these countries. So we welcome all of that. We have a particular responsibility here with our Pacific family, and our production and our securing of vaccines, plus our participation in the COVAX facilities and other purchasing arrangements, means we will be able to provide that support to Pacific countries. And I can assure you, and I'll be meeting with them tonight on another issue, but they are very appreciative of that support and they know they can trust Australia to be there for them. And we certainly will be there when it comes to supporting them with the vaccine.
JOURNALIST: A follow up on Tom’s question, so if the- if Donald Trump doesn't want the Pfizer vaccine out of America, you know, hypothetical scenario, do we have any manufacturing deal with the Pfizer vaccine in Australia or are we reliant on manufacturing in the US and exports out of the US?
THE HON. GREG HUNT MP, MINISTER FOR HEALTH: So Pfizer's an RNA vaccine and the world has never had MRNA, any MRNA vaccines prior to now. And so this is one which is manufactured overseas. We have the capacity, obviously, with CSL to do the AstraZeneca work and it also has the capacity to do other non-MRNA vaccines.
JOURNALIST: When it comes to vaccines we do see a fair bit of disinformation on social media. And I suspect that with this news about the false HIV test positives, we're going to see similar today on Facebook and Twitter. Is there a role for the government to start rolling out a public information campaign ahead of the vaccine, to start instilling confidence? And how important is it for politicians to take the lead when that vaccine does become available?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, last night the Premiers and I discussed that very issue in terms of when we would take the jab, and we will take it as soon as the medical advice suggests that we should and in the order and priority that is set out in the strategy. And so you can be assured of that. Of course. And that is not new. I've said that for this platform on many occasions, of course, we will have a public information campaign to do that. I don't suggest that people take their medical advice from Facebook or Twitter. I think that would be pretty stupid to do that. And I know Australians aren't stupid. I know Australians- and a high rate of vaccination in Australia is a demonstration of the wisdom of Australians and their confidence in the vaccination programmes we have in this country.
Earlier this week, I was speaking to the Netherlands Prime Minister, Mark Rutte, and we were discussing the issues of vaccines and the sort of rates that we would hope to hit. And I was able to share with him Australia's great success in vaccination programmes and that we are in the 90s, 95 per cent. These are figures that other countries only hope to achieve. And one of the reasons for that is, I think is the very experienced way we go about it, the strong trust that Australians rightly have in our health professionals and administrators who make these decisions to keep them safe. And of course, we will engage in that public information campaign. The states strongly support that as well, and they'll be partners in its rollout. Today we'll have a good discussion at National Cabinet, as we did indeed last night, about how we're now working to roll out that vaccine. We're well advanced on that in the discussions with the states and territories, there was a meeting, I think, yesterday, Brendan, with all the health officers and other senior health officials from the states and territories working through the planning phase now of that of that rollout. So, yes, absolutely. But listen to the official advice on vaccinations, as always. Nothing new about that. Always go to the official advice. Always go to your doctor. Always go to the medical advice, not to social media on something like that.
JOURNALIST: Prime Minister, just further to that, just to clarify, are there any other concerns with this vaccine, apart from false-
PRIME MINISTER: Which one?
JOURNALIST: The University of Queensland vaccine, or maybe this is better directed at Professor Murphy?
PRIME MINISTER: It certainly is.
DR BRENDAN MURPHY, SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: None at all.
JOURNALIST: So that’s the only?
DR BRENDAN MURPHY, SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: every other aspect of its development was going really well-
JOURNALIST: So this is a question of public confidence only? When you had an effective vaccine, was that a difficult decision?
DR BRENDAN MURPHY, SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: We don't- we know that it was producing very good antibodies. It was likely to be effective in phase three trials. We hadn't done those phase three trials, but it was all the evidence would suggest it was going to be an effective vaccine. But we cannot risk public confidence. We just can't. And given that we have other successful candidate vaccines, this was a very difficult decision that CSL and we made together. But it was important to keep that public confidence. But I emphasise it was excellent research, it was a good platform, and it was likely to be an effective vaccine at preventing coronavirus, we think. But we haven't got the phase three data.
JOURNALIST: Does that feel like a waste then? All this research, all this money, all this time?
DR BRENDAN MURPHY, SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF HEALTH: Well, we knew that we had to have redundancy. We knew that we had to get public confidence. Anything that risks public confidence is too great an issue for us when we've got this challenge of getting our population vaccinated. It was a hard decision for everybody.
PRIME MINISTER: But that’s the scientific process. The scientific process is always to research, to test, to trial. And you need to spread your investments to give as much opportunity for the most successful vaccines to go forward. This is the normal scientific process, and it always makes sense to invest in the science and that research process to get the best possible health outcome. So I'm very pleased we made these investment decisions. I'm very pleased we backed the world class researchers at the University of Queensland. And my message simply to them today is thank you and all the best with your continued work. You are life savers and we're incredibly proud of you.
JOURNALIST: Just a final one, the international climate summit this weekend that Prime Minister Johnson's leading, you seemingly confirmed at Question Time yesterday Australia hasn’t been granted a slot. China has, I mean, Kazakhstan has, what does it say about the summit and what does it say about Australia's climate credentials if we're not speaking but they are?
PRIME MINISTER: Well, there are many countries that are not speaking, I mean New Zealand is not speaking either. So Australia's policies, when it comes to reducing emissions, are set here in Australia, in Australia's national interests. And our responsibility is to set that in a way that is consistent with the demands and needs and views of the Australian people and the science that supports that. And we have got a great track record. And I'll be sharing that track record again with Pacific Island leaders this evening. And that record is one which has seen our emissions fall by 16.6-percent since 2005. Australia is getting on with the job of reducing our emissions. We've worked hard to do that. Our over-achievement of the Kyoto targets for more than 430 million tonnes, I think of overachievement. They've been hard earned by the way, those credits that have been earned, they've been earned by farmers investing in changes in their farming practices and they've invested to achieve those earned credits. And what that means is that Australia is well on track to hit our 2030 targets and our reliance on those issues, I'll have more to say about that in the not too distant future. But the credits have been hard earned and hard won. And they're important, and I thank particularly our agricultural community, households, for putting solar on their roofs and so many others that have seen Australia perform so well. I wish them well for the summit. I'm sure it will be very nice and I think it'll be a successful summit from that perspective. But Australia will just continue to get on with the job. See that's what we do. I mean-
JOURNALIST: Was it frustrating Prime Minister I mean Prime Minister that they seem to want you there. And then they had this diplomatic push back to stop you attending?
PRIME MINISTER: Look, I don't think there was as much theatre in that as you suggest David at all. We have many issues we'll continue to work on. I mean, at the moment with the UK and the EU, we're very focussed on the free trade agreement with both of those countries. And I've had many discussions with both the EU and the UK and particularly Prime Minister Johnson, on those issues. Look, what matters here is what you get done, not what you talk about. Australia's getting it done. And I'm very proud of what Australians are achieving. And I'm very thankful for the support that we've had both from households around the country as well as industry and farmers. They have all worked so hard to achieve what have been very, very good achievements on emissions reduction. Our technology plan going into the future is about continuing to achieve. See I really think we've got to the point now where it's not about the if, and it's not even about the when, it's about the how. What matters now is how we achieve emissions reduction. I said at the G20 recently, what matters is if you can produce hydrogen at $2 dollars a kilo Australian, if you can do that, then all of these targets take care of themselves. And so we're focussed on the how, and how you get it done. And I'm particularly encouraged by the enthusiasm of, whether it's in Japan, or in the United Kingdom, or Germany, or other places. They want to work with Australia on our energy plan. They want to work with us on our energy technology plan. Prime Minister Johnson and I agreed that we need to go forward with a technology agreement on energy, just like we are doing with Japan. And so we'll just keep getting it done. And I wish them well for their event over the course of the weekend. But I must admit, I'm particularly interested to be joining with our Pacific Island family tonight, to address not only how we're meeting our commitments, but also how we're supporting them when it comes to climate resilience and adaptation. This is the other, as I set out at the start of this year that some of you will recall - in addressing climate change, reducing emissions is incredibly important, and that's why we're doing what we're doing. But the reality is we have to address climate resilience and adaptation. And Australia is making significant investments in our own country on that front. And we're also making very significant investments in our region as well. And so we're moving on all of these fronts. But right now, the front I have to move on is the National Cabinet and enjoin them for our last meeting of this year and we will be joining you a little later as the members of that National Cabinet for a press conference on those issues. And I'll catch you then.
Thanks very much.
