COVID-19 vaccines sent to Sydney: petition with support of MP's Roy Butler and Helen Dalton demands rural and regional vaccinations be returned

Shooters, Fishers and Farmers MP for Barwon Roy Butler said the decision was based in "city-centric bias" and that the regions are unequipped to handle an outbreak of COVID-19 without strong vaccination rates.

"We should not even be having this discussion," he said.

"This comes down to a lack of urgency from the federal government to get vaccines and ordinary messaging from senior public health officials in regards to AstraZeneca which has created concerns when all credible reports show it's a safe and reasonable vaccine to use.

"Now we have vaccine hesitancy due to untidy messaging that has us ranked at 36/38 in the OECD for vaccinations."

This week the state government decided to re-route 40,000 Pfizer doses bound for rural and regional NSW to south-west Sydney in an attempt to stifle the growing outbreak.

On Wednesday, fragments of the virus were detected in sewage in Newcastle, Shortland, Belmont, Coffs Harbour, Bonny Hills and Mudgee and two people died.

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Murray MP Helen Dalton demanded the state government release data on how many vaccines have been taken from each regional district to send to Sydney's HSC students.

"I would sincerely hope the state government aren't pork barrelling the vaccine roll out," Mrs Dalton said "But they did this with bushfire relief, so there's no end to how low they might stoop."

The petition already has almost 4000 signatures.

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