Australia news updates live: Scott Morrison defends electric vehicle policy in face of backlash

Prime minister continues to lash out at Labor as he responds to questions about his government's stance on EVs. Vaccine rollout tracker; Cases and data trackerNSW Covid restrictions; Victoria restrictionsGet our free news app; get our morning email briefingScott Morrison has done a round of morning interviews, preparing the ground for an election by talking up the economy and lying about Labor's electric vehicle policy.Asked about his backflip on electric vehicles, Morrison told Channel Seven's Sunrise:Labor wanted to force people to do this and I still don't want to do that. You don't get people to do something else by pushing up the price that they are currently doing that is still what Labor wants to do. They want to put up your petrol prices, increase your cost of living to force you to make other choice.I'm here at the Doncaster RSL and people will be coming together and giving thanks for the tremendous sacrifice of our diggers. We think of them today and my job is to focus on securing this economic recovery, that's what matters to Australians.The Labor party were not forcing people. It was not a mandate at the last election that they were introducing, it was a non-binding target of 50% [of new cars to be electric by 2030]. Wasn't that the same as yours?No, they were going to put up the price of oil. That's not going to help anybody commuting on their way to work from the outer suburbs today, they were going to put up the cost of fuel to try to force people to switch over. That's not how we do things. We are not a government that goes around trying to tell people what to do. I think Australians have had a gut full of government trying to tell them what to do in their lives. These commitments, together with a $107 million vaccine procurement through UNICEF will deliver over 20 million doses to Indonesia under our health partnership to support Indonesia's national vaccine rollout.Supporting equitable access to Covid-19 vaccines for our region and ensuring their safe roll out are the highest priorities for Australia. Australia has committed to supply up to 60 million doses to the Indo-Pacific by the end of 2022. Nearly 7.2 million of these doses will have been delivered to countries across the Indo-Pacific by the end of this week. Continue reading...