Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm proud to rise today to support my colleagues in calling this government out on the failures that they've delivered for Australians most recently, and I do so with this context: today Joe Biden tweeted that 50 per cent of American adults are completely vaccinated. That's something I'd like to be saying about this country today, but, no, in this country only two per cent of adults are completely vaccinated. If you put that into context in terms of the trajectory for the US and the fact that they've had a change of government along this journey, that's an extraordinary achievement. I won't be calling the Biden government a failure.

I will, however, be calling the Morrison government a failure today, because today we saw—it's not that long ago since question time, is it? Can I remind you of what I saw in question time?—two questions in, one from us and one from their own side, I stood to ask the Prime Minister a question and he was too puffed, too tired and gave it the flick pass to someone else, and that sums up this government. They're too tired, too out of breath, looking to flick past responsibility, and they have done it through out this pandemic. They've blamed things on the states. They've blamed it on people.

Last time we were here—it's only a week ago we went home for a little while—the Prime Minister was really being careful about congratulating Australians on their achievement. Remember? 'Australians should congratulate themselves on how well we're doing in the pandemic.' Well, that switched today, didn't it? Today it was about taking credit. Not once did he congratulate Australians today. Today it was all about him. It was all about what a great job he'd done in the face of what is an absolute failure.

As a Victorian I stand here, my phone is ringing hot from home because there's another outbreak, which underlines this government's failure in quarantine and in vaccination. I can go back—in my electorate during this pandemic we lost lots of lives in aged care, and I had to put up with this government obfuscating and suggesting that aged care was someone else's responsibility and that the provision of PPE was someone else's responsibility. They still haven't learnt the lesson, because, as we stand here today, aged-care workers in my electorate are still not vaccinated. We've got an outbreak in Melbourne, and aged-care workers aren't vaccinated. Worse, in terms of failure, they were told they would be vaccinated on site—remember?—only to have the rug pulled out from under them and told to go to the GP.

We know that aged-care workers are often working shifts at different places. We knew from the pandemic that people went to work sick because they couldn't afford to stay home, but this government told them, 'Go to the GP.' When, pray tell, were they going to the GP? Were they taking a day off work to go to the GP? Were they going to be paid for that day off, given the vast majority of them are casuals without sick pay? This government just doesn't think anything through, and then it marches in here and wants to claim credit for Australians' hard work, claim credit for the states' hard work, while they have failed, absolutely failed.

Today, in question time, they claimed credit for quarantine staff being vaccinated. The states have done that! They claimed credit for frontline health staff being vaccinated. The states have done that! The states have done those things!

The Prime Minister stood at the dispatch box claiming credit for other people's hard work. He sees the pandemic as the road to another election win. That is the frame everything is seen through. This government has failed aged-care workers. This government is so frightened of failure now, it has stopped setting targets. They don't set targets for anything. It is out on the never-never. Remember the increase in numbers in the quarantine facility in the Northern Territory were going to be April-May? April-May—what sort of a target is that? When asked about it today, the Prime Minister couldn't answer it and flick passed it to someone else to take responsibility for his failings.

See this speech in context