Andrew Wallace (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like so many who have spoken before me in this debate, I'd like to express my condolences for those who have passed away as a result of COVID, across the board, but, in particular, in relation to those who were living in aged-care facilities. There are so many things that one could say, such as one death is too many, and of course all of those things are correct.

One of the things that strike me perhaps the most as a still relatively young person is that I think we have a vision of what our own deaths might look like, and hopefully we'll be surrounded by our loved ones when we go. We might be at home, we might be in a hospital bed, but we like to think—universally, I think—that we'll be surrounded by those we love and we can tell them we love them. Perhaps one of the saddest parts about those who have suffered from and those who have passed away from COVID is that, by and large, that's happened without their family being there, and that's a great source of sadness and sorrow. Likewise, as a result of the restrictions, we often haven't had the opportunity to say our goodbyes at their funeral. My parents are elderly. They live in Melbourne. I live in Queensland. I worry about them down there. I know that members here who live in Victoria are living in a totally different world from me in Queensland—and I hope that Queensland never goes the same way as Victoria.

Those opposite talk about us having no plan, and that is fundamentally false. As the member for Barker, who spoke previously, and so many of those on the government side have indicated, there is a six-point plan which goes back to January and has been implemented. There are eight separate jurisdictions in the Commonwealth of Australia. If there were no plan, we would see the same sorts of problems replicated across those eight jurisdictions. That is not what we are seeing. We are seeing a problem specifically in Victoria. Across the whole country, the number of cases of people who have contracted COVID while living in a residential aged-care facility is 1,761. That's across the country. The number of deaths is 328 or, if you add home care to that, 335. The Victorian component of that is 1,698 cases, or 96 per cent of Australian cases; and deaths, 297, or 91 per cent. If those opposite were correct—their philosophy, their principle, their policy, their suggestion—that we have no plan, why is this predominantly happening in Victoria but essentially nowhere else? It's because their hypothesis is incorrect.

Now, no system is perfect, and I don't say that as some sort of justification; I go back to my earlier comment that one death is too many. And one death should give cause us to pause and look at how we can improve the system, and that is exactly what we are doing. This is not 'set and forget'. The health minister and the aged-care minister are working very diligently and very hard to ensure that what we are experiencing in Victoria is not replicated across the country.

But it is sad—I want to join the member for Barker in his comment—because this is a time for us to come together as a parliament. In this whole COVID crisis in particular, we need to come together and support Australians— (Time expired)

See this speech in context