Deal controversy

   / Former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd                                 / Prime Minster Scott Morrison

Claims former prime minister Kevin Rudd helped Australia’s Pfizer supply have been quashed after a letter from him to PM Scott Morrison appeared to reveal just how Australia’s vaccine rollout went wrong.

Reports emerged on Sunday night that Mr Rudd had met with Pfizer boss Dr Albert Bourla and discussed Australia receiving 40 million vaccines last month. Mr Rudd made it clear to Mr Morrison in a letter, sent on June 30, after the meeting that he was doing so as a “concerned citizen” and not acting on the government’s behalf.

The Morrison government has been criticised for the country’s slow vaccine rollout. Australia’s initial contract with Pfizer was for 10 million jabs, signed in November 2020, this was until last week when the PM announced there would now be 40 million administered by the end of the year.

The ABC reported this was due to Mr Rudd’s intervention on Australia’s behalf, claims the government strongly denies. A spokesman for Health Minister Greg Hunt told The Australian there was no evidence Mr Rudd’s meeting influenced the decision for the pharmaceutical giant to send more vaccines down under.

In the letter sent from Mr Rudd to Mr Morrison the former Labor leader said the Pfizer boss would personally investigate Australia’s vaccine situation. Mr Rudd also wrote about “the possibility of Australia perhaps seeking a large-scale advance order of Pfizer’s 2022 vaccine ‘booster’.” It also discussed how the vaccine rollout had been slowed by “political pressures” and intellectual property regulations.

The ABC reports senior business figures based in the US had discussed speaking with Pfizer to see if they could help Australia get larger supplies of the vaccine. The conversation reportedly came about due to reports Australia had bungled its negotiations with Pfizer.

However on the day he sent the letter to the PM he blasted him online. “While the world opens up, Morrison’s failure on vaccines & failure on quarantine have locked us down. The world sees Australia as a country whose leaders have inexplicably let them down,” he wrote.