Scott Morrison has indicated there could be penalties imposed in anyone who refuses a coronavirus vaccine, other than those with legitimate medical reasons.

“In the first instance Id be encouraging people to take it on. I’ll certainly be taking it on, my family will be taking it on. And Id be encouraging all others to do the responsible thing, for the sake of not only their own health but the communitys health.”
He said the community would need a 95 per cent vaccination rate to enable life to return to normal.
He accepted there would be concerns given the rush to produce a vaccine but assured nothing would not be distributed unless it was proven to be safe.
“We will apply the same rigour to this vaccine as we would to any other vaccine,” he said.
Labor attacked the announcement as a stunt, given no actual supply of a vaccine had yet been secured.
Mr Morrison announced a letter of intent had been signed with AstraZeneca which is working with the scientists at the University of Oxford.
A final formal agreement is yet to be concluded but the government and AstraZeneca were confident.
“The next step will be to conclude other contractual agreements, including arrangements with a selected manufacturer who can produce the vaccine locally,” the company said in a statement.
“We look forward to confirming the next steps with the Australian government and other critical partners shortly.”
But shadow health minister Chris Bowen, who has been pushing the government in recent weeks for not having signed a supply agreement, said the situation remained inadequate.
“This is a Prime Minister who has completely jumped the gun in his announcement but he has not jumped the gun on the substance,” he said.
“The government says it is not yet time to sign an agreement with AstraZeneca but other countries have.”
“The US has, the UK has. Japan has. India has. Brazil has, South Korea have. China has, Argentina and Mexico have. But Australia has not.”
Mr Bowen said it also remained unclear as to whether CSL, the manufacturer of choice, has the capacity of will to make the vaccine under licence, should it pass clinical trials.
CSL chief executive Paul Perreault said the company was in discussions with AstraZeneca but there were numerous technical and regulatory issues to work through and its partnership with CEPI and the University of Queensland remained its priority.
We clearly want to do the right thing and were not sure which vaccine will work, or if either one will work, he said.
Were more than happy to explore other opportunities and the UQ vaccine is very different from the AstraZeneca one.
We would need to manufacture the virus-based vaccine, so theres a lot to do there like putting the virus into plants, cleaning facilities, turning it around and validating it and we dont even have the process developed yet.
But I cant over commit and just say we can do it if we could fall flat on our face.
-with Yolanda Redrup