• Private enterprise could be integrated into Australia’s vaccine rollout later this year, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has announced.
• Frydenberg said a “productive” meeting of business leaders and government officials heard vaccines “could be provided at the local Bunnings or Officeworks”.
• But both Frydenberg and rollout chief Lieutenant-General John Frewen said that move would be subject to vaccine supply, which is slated to expand from September.
• Visit Business Insider Australia’s homepage for more stories.

Retailers and other private companies could help administer COVID-19 vaccines in the final months of the year, Treasurer Josh Frydenberg has announced, after business leaders and government officials pledged to integrate the private sector into Australia’s beleaguered vaccine rollout.

Speaking in Canberra on Thursday, Frydenberg said he and new rollout tsar Lieutenant-General John Frewen held a “constructive and productive” meeting with the CEOs of companies including Coles, Commonwealth Bank, Wesfarmers, Telstra, Qantas, and Virgin Australia.

Each company involved affirmed they would encourage vaccine take-up among their own staff, and would promote vaccination to their customers, where appropriate. Qantas CEO Alan Joyce reiterated the airline’s pledge to offer frequent flyer points to incentivise vaccination, Frydenberg said.

But the prospect of using retail shopfronts as vaccine hubs, in addition to general practices and state-run clinics, was the most notable outcome of the meeting.

Frydenberg said there were “many offers of premises for vaccinations being rolled out, including from Wesfarmers, that raise the opportunities that could be provided at the local Bunnings or Officeworks.”

Vaccine uptake is a key issue for Australia’s private sector, as businesses have been ravaged by lockdowns and border closures caused by COVID-19 outbreaks and low levels of immunisation.

But the new head of Australia’s vaccination taskforce said clinics within hardware and office supply stores are still months from fruition.

“That won’t be every workplace and won’t be immediate,” Frewen said. “There will be a time in the year when we have the adequate supplies to support workforce vaccination, but in the meantime, industry have offered… to support administration around setting up other pathways for vaccination.”

Their involvement getting jabs into arms will be dictated by Australia’s vaccine supply, Frewen said.

“As we get especially into those later months of October, November, December, the supply we will have, it will be really important for people to have a more diverse range of ways to access the vaccine,” he said.

“It will give us greater flexibility. It will give us greater choice and greater convenience.”

The federal government’s new COVID-19 vaccine ‘horizon’ document projects Australia’s supply of the Pfizer vaccine will grow to 430,000 doses a week through September. At the same time, the first Moderna doses are slated for arrival, with the AstraZeneca formulation gradually phased out over the final months of the year.

The document suggests that more than 900,000 vaccine doses could be administered each week between October and December.

That optimistic vision for Australia’s future rollout plans arrived as GPs across the nation say their practices have been impacted by supply shortages and confusing messaging over vaccine eligibility.

Frydenberg maintained that GP network and Australia’s larger vaccination sites will remain the “primary mechanism for rolling out the vaccine” for some time to come.

“But as more supply comes online, using businesses and their resources is going to be important… as more supply comes on board, businesses can play a greater role,” Frydenberg said.

The costs of delaying the rollout further could not be more obvious, after NSW Premier Gladys Berejiklian today revealed the lockdown measures impacting Greater Sydney, sparked by community transmission of the highly infectious COVID-19 Delta variant, will be extended for another week.

Frydenberg said NSW Treasurer Dominic Perrottet had contacted him seeking a revival of the JobKeeper wage subsidy program, which the Federal Treasurer denied.

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