Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I speak on the government's inadequate response to the COVID-19 pandemic. At the outset, let me say that this is a health crisis that required a political response. Let there be no mistake about this. Australia has done quite well compared to other countries around the world. With a population of 25 million people, Australia has had 25,000 cases. Unfortunately, we've had about 525 deaths. I give my commiserations and condolences to all the families affected. Sweden, with about a third of Australia's population, has had 87,000 cases and 5,900 deaths. I mention Sweden because the member for Hughes, the captain's pick for the last election, proceeds all the time with conspiracy theories and false medical advice, with no response from the government. It is disgraceful that the Prime Minister, who picked this man to be a candidate at the last election, does not acknowledge the terrible comments he makes on Facebook and all sorts of media all the time, which is really impairing our response and giving food to the conspiracy theorists. It's terrible.

Australia has done well because politicians have listened to expert advice from scientists and medical experts. But they almost didn't. If you remember, at the beginning of the pandemic, the Prime Minister was off to the footy, wasn't he? But, luckily, someone tapped him on the shoulder—I suspect it may have been the health minister—and said, 'You have to listen to this advice,' and the right thing was done. Australia did well because the politicians listened to the advice of the experts and dealt with the expert management by our bureaucracies. Our Public Service very rarely gets commendations, but we are very lucky to live in a country like Australia, where our bureaucracies and public service can respond so well. I'd like to give my congratulations and thanks to all of our public servants, state and federal, who have done so well.

Australia has done well, but there have been missteps, particularly in aged care. Aged care has been a national tragedy. This was something that was foreseen by the Standing Committee on Health, Aged Care and Sport in an inquiry in 2017. We were given lots of evidence on the inability of the aged-care system to cope with infectious diseases such as influenza, gastroenteritis et cetera. This was a predictable outcome, yet nothing was done. There may have been a plan, but it was a catch 22 plan. It was the plan you had when there was no plan.

Border protection was terrible—not just the Ruby Princess. Even recently, I've had complaints from constituents about our airport health screening. This is something that was predicted, and yet nothing was done by this government and this minister for months and months.

Our messaging to young people has been terrible. First of all they were told: 'You'll be okay. This won't affect you. You'll be fine.' Then they were severely criticised for going to Bondi Beach on a good summer's day. We need to get our messaging right. We are also getting our messaging to culturally and linguistically diverse communities wrong. We need to make sure that the messages we're giving to people are ones that they understand and can act on.

Our lack of pandemic leave for people who were not going to get any support if they had to leave work to be tested or if they were sick was terrible. We need to have a national plan for this, not state by state.

The other thing I would take issue with is the national cabinet. The national cabinet is a good idea, but I personally was very disappointed that the Leader of the Opposition was not appointed to this. The true national cabinet we had in the Second World War, under the Curtin government, included the Leader of the Opposition. It needs to be national. Our state borders need a national plan (Time expired)

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