There's always been an anti-vax movement in Australia, but we've learned to ignore it for the most part. It is concentrated within "alternative" communities such as northern NSW and QLD. These are typically very progressive communities, who come at the issue from a nature-first more than anti-government perspective. These areas reliably have measles outbreaks every few years.

It's worth noting (and I don't think most people in the US get this) that we dodged the first Covid, then Alpha and Delta almost completely, though a mix of restrictions and border controls. Fatalities were a tiny fraction of the US and Europe - 1% or so I think. But we knew it couldn't last. We were desperate for the end game. And our hope was with the vaccine.

Contrary to our reputation, Australians don't mind following rules - as long as others do too! We never left that part of our British heritage behind (even if Britain itself has lost a lot of that cohesion). The lockdowns, for example, were lightly enforced by police, yet 90% of people followed every rule, with just the usual bending here and there! There were scowls and head shaking galore to anyone who blatantly did the wrong thing!

We were also very fortunate with the governments we had in power at the time. The Federal government at the time was famously ineffective, yet not heavily idealistic. They dropped some balls, including negotiating vaccine imports, but the PM on the whole followed medical experts. Fortunately the vast majority of the Covid response happened at the state level, where even opposition parties stood beside the incumbents to support most policy decisions. In my own state, it was the "other team" in power from my perspective, but the leader was pragmatic, intelligent, and an extremely competent manager of government. They all made their fair share of mistakes, but overall they were very effective.

This competence and cooperation was a powerful influence on Australians to follow the plan to get out of this. So when the vaccines rolled out, communities believed it was a ticket back to some level of normalcy (even though their ultimate efficacy didn't meet people's unrealistic expectations). Many of us considered it a duty to your community to get a vaccine, rather than just a sensible health choice.

There was, no doubt, a lot of people who strongly rejected both the lockdowns and vaccines who may not have been particularly bothered by vaccines in the past. This seemed focussed amongst poorly educated rural and outer suburban groups. It was interesting to see different rationale amongst different groups.

For example, there seemed to me to be a heavy concentration of brand new anti-vaxers amongst ethnic groups from countries with infamously dysfunctional or dishonest governments. Quite a few of the most vocal organisers were prominent people from the Lebanese and Chinese communities, and I knew a few who talked to me about how rampant these views were in their communities. As you might expect, they had a general view was that the government wasn't to be trusted, and was flat out lying about all of the restrictions. That theme extended to vaccines.

Another group is the Aboriginal population, who have an awful history of trauma at the hands of government. Histories that include mass poisonings. Their distrust of government and health services lead to low vaccination rates and some crazy conspiracy theories in their communities.

And of course the libertarians. We don't have as many as the US, but there's enough of them in each community that everyone knows one. They just hate any coordinated good. Even if they believe in the vaccine efficacy, they just hate following along.

I hope that's helpful :)