Chief Minister Andrew Barr used Monday's national cabinet meeting to push the federal government to begin work on producing the Pfizer coronavirus vaccine locally.
Mr Barr said he urged Prime Minister Scott Morrison to commit to building a facility that could produce the mRNA vaccines in Australia.
The federal government wants states and territories to use mass vaccination centres to vastly speed up the vaccine rollout, after abandoning earlier targets for its completion.
But state and territory leaders say without guaranteed vaccine supply, they are unable to lead mass vaccination efforts.
Mr Barr said work should have begun to scale up Australia's production capacity in October, when then-science minister Karen Andrews said it would take one year.
"We could have been halfway there by now," Mr Barr said.
Ms Andrews has said Australia had the capability to manufacture an mRNA type COVID-19 vaccine like Pfizer's, but cannot do it at the scale required for a mass rollout.
Australia can produce the AstraZeneca jab locally, but the vaccine has been linked to blood clots and is no longer recommended for people under 50.
Mr Barr said the ACT was ready to scale up its vaccine delivery, and could use walk-in centres as vaccination hubs.
"We'll get ready to do it, but we're not going to open up mass clinics if we don't have a mass supply of appropriate vaccines for the particular cohorts. I think the advantage we have is that we can stand things up very quickly," Mr Barr said on Tuesday.
National cabinet on Monday agreed to bring forward vaccinations for people over 50, and was told orders of the Pfizer vaccine were due to arrive later this year.
The Australian Academy of Science warned in February that Australia would be at risk of vaccine shortages and called on the federal government to invest in a new facility to manufacture mRNA-type vaccines.
