Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] Well, I'll tell you what we wouldn't have done: if federal Labor were in government, we wouldn't have supported Clive Palmer in the courts in WA to make Mark McGowan open up the borders! That's what we wouldn't have done, Member for Page. If you want to know what it looks like to see the federal government abandon Victorians, listen to the drivel that came out of the previous member.

I start my contribution by, unlike the previous speaker, actually saying thank you to Victorians. Victorians have spent some of the most difficult days of our state at home. We've worn masks. We've stayed away from friends and family. Our local businesses have made huge sacrifices. And it has saved lives.

In August, we had 725 cases in Victoria, and today we had one—one! The daily case numbers often shape the mood of our great city, and on days of high numbers we have been flat. But today the mood is one of pride. Across the world, lockdowns are being imposed as the virus continues to gain momentum. Case numbers are exploding in the UK, in India, in Israel, in France, in Spain, and, devastatingly so, in the United States. Yet, we have managed to get to the point where we are in Victoria because of the sacrifices and the collective approach made by Victorians. We have lost a lot of lives—far too many—but nowhere near as many as we would have had we not stayed the course, nowhere near as many as we would have had we just done what other countries did and let the virus rip, and nowhere near as many as we would have had we had just listened to the federal government.

When the pandemic first hit our shores, Australian people looked for unity. The Prime Minister fronted the nation and promised unity in the national cabinet, and people were relieved. I was relieved. It meant that we were going to pause partisanship for the sake of our national interest. But, as of today, something significant has changed since April. Today we have a federal government more interested in playing politics than they are in providing the supportive leadership we desperately need during this pandemic. In a time where we need giants, our Prime Minister presents as a small-minded, hyperpartisan combatant more interested in commenting from the sidelines than actually taking political risks and sharing responsibility. He demands that the states follow his orders: throw your borders open and don't listen to your health experts. But, if anything goes wrong—warning!—this Prime Minister will throw the states under the bus, especially if they elected a Labor premier.

Our federally regulated and funded aged-care facility system was woefully unprepared for an outbreak, with no plan to deal with one. That couldn't be the federal government's responsibility or fault. No, that's Victoria's fault, apparently. There's the inability of Australians to return home. Well, surely, that's got to be the state's fault, because even quarantine, a federal responsibility in the Constitution, has been palmed off to the states by this Prime Minister. Then there is contact tracing, a difficult job made even more difficult by the fact that the Prime Minister's faulty app didn't work in the state where we desperately needed it to.

The Prime Minister hasn't been there to support Victorians in our time need. In fact, the Prime Minister cut support to Victorians in our time of need. He cut support to JobKeeper. He cut support to JobSeeker. The Prime Minister chose the leave so many off JobKeeper support in the first place—artists, casual workers, those in the university sector and in local government. And, all the while he's cutting support, he sends out his lackeys to go and attack Labor premiers. He sends out his lackey, the Minister for Home Affairs, to attack the Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk. He sends his lackeys, the Treasurer and the health minister, to go and fight and undermine Daniel Andrews. And he sends his lackey, Clive Palmer, to go and undermine Mark McGowan and to fight him in the courts in WA. This Prime Minister is happy to expend lots of energy fighting the Labor Party but not much energy bringing the member for Hughes into line for his dangerous contradictions of the chief medical officers in his own government during a health pandemic.

We have endured so much in Victoria. We have achieved something remarkable. I'm looking forward to being back in Canberra, but I will know that we have gotten through this without the hyperpartisan nonsense from the man who calls himself our Prime Minister.

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