Senior business figures turned to former PM Kevin Rudd to intervene in bringing forward Australia's Pfizer vaccine supply
: Senior Pfizer executives told the businessman that if Australia was to make a more serious effort, after its treatment at the hands of relatively junior bureaucrats, it would have to come from much higher up, expressing their astonishment that Prime Minister Scott Morrison had not directly spoken to the Pfizer chairman and chief executive Albert Bourla, as former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu had done on multiple occasions. The executives suggested that, in the absence of Mr Morrison, former Australian prime minister Kevin Rudd — who was known to them because of his work in the United States as head of the New York-based Asia Society — may have some influence. The spin since then has been about denying it had any influence, but that's not really the point. For the incumbent PM, it's an incredible demonstration that at least some Australian business high flyers are taking matters into their own hands. The attitude from Pfizer ("send us your leader or you don't get jabs") is particularly questionable when you combine it with the whole circus about the deal being a national security risk. The whole situation has a pretty big smell to it.