Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education) Share this | Hansard source

The Morrison government is responsible for our aged-care system. It is clearly a Commonwealth responsibility. In fact, because of his actions as minister and Treasurer, Prime Minister Morrison has a personal responsibility for the billions cut from our aged-care system. Prime Minister Morrison and his cronies are responsible for the terrible neglect identified by the royal commission. The nation has been shocked and horrified at the neglect uncovered during the royal commission hearings—horrific neglect including residents of aged care with maggots in wounds, and two-thirds of residents being malnourished or at risk of being malnourished. For eight long years the coalition government have failed to listen to our valuable Australians who are in aged care. They've failed to listen to the families of aged-care residents. They've failed to listen to the workers who give so much in aged care. In fact, they've treated them almost with contempt. The coalition have failed to listen to 22 expert reports. The time for kicking the can down the road is over now. Prime Minister Morrison can't say, 'Look, I don't hold a Zimmer frame, mate.'

Sadly, now that the royal commission into aged care has handed down its final report, the Morrison government's response shows that they haven't listened to the royal commissioners either. The facts were horrific, but the coalition's response is woeful. They have no plan for reform that will improve aged care in the long term. They've fobbed off, delayed or outright rejected key recommendations. For example, they have not committed to improving wages for our overstretched, undervalued aged-care workers. Aged-care workers caring four our most vulnerable citizens are being paid less than someone working at McDonald's. The royal commission recommended immediately increasing the basic daily fee by $10 per resident per day to improve nutritional and care outcomes. The government's response? They decided to throw $3.2 billion to providers without any of the reporting requirements laid out by the royal commission. There's no way to ensure that this money will actually go to food and care; it will probably end up as bonuses for management. We need more meals, Prime Minister, not more Maseratis. They've failed to clear the home-care package waitlist. There are 100,000 Australians who need extra support to safely stay in their own homes, but the Morrison government has told them, 'Manana, manana.' The coalition has ignored the royal commission's recommendation to require a nurse to be on duty 24/7 in every residential care facility. They just ignored that recommendation altogether. It was a key recommendation that is core to improving care for older Australians in our aged-care facilities. Prime Minister Morrison also shirked the main increase to mandatory care minutes in residential aged care. Staffing levels are central to the many of the quality care problems in residential aged care. We know we're going to need an additional 700,000 workers in aged care by 2050 to cope with our ageing population. There is no way that is achievable when these jobs are disrespected and undervalued by this government. After eight long years of neglect, the Morrison government's response to the recommendations of the royal commission is utterly shameful. The Treasurer and the Prime Minister should hang their heads in shame.

When I'm home in Moreton, every morning I walk through the beautiful Toohey Forest. Toohey Forest is typical of the open eucalypt forest that once covered Greater Brisbane. As well as being a favourite walking and riding spot for locals, it is home to over 400 species of native wildlife and plants. Professor Darryl Jones from Griffith University—the campus adjoins Toohey Forest—says Toohey Forest is an ecological island in suburbia. It is estimated that about 30 koalas call Toohey Forest home. We're very fortunate to have a colony of koalas just 10 kilometres from the Brisbane CBD. For locals like me, the koalas are almost in our backyards.

We can't be complacent about these iconic Australian animals. Most koala populations are heading towards extinction. The National Koala Conservation and Management Strategy ended in 2014, and the coalition government still hasn't delivered another one. They haven't even delivered a recovery plan for the koala, which was initially due by 2015. After the horrific bushfires last year, the Australian Conservation Foundation says, a recovery plan is now even more urgent. I don't want to see a future where our children or our grandchildren are reading about koalas in history books like we today do for the Tasmanian tiger. Sadly, Australia is heading down that path right now.

Australia's environment is in decline. National icons like the koala have died in record numbers. Environment department funding has been gutted by 40 per cent. Successive ministers in the coalition government have run the department into the ground, and the Morrison government has little idea what has happened to our threatened species. It's a disgrace—a national disgrace. The decisions we take now will impact Australia's national icons and less charismatic species and, vitally, our biosecurity for generations to come. Under the coalition, 170 out of 171 outstanding threatened species recovery plans are overdue, and the Morrison government has no plan to get these done. Labor's shadow minister for the environment and water, my next-door neighbour, has called on the government, in parliament, to make a threatened species recovery plan and to make a new national koala conservation strategy. We need the Morrison government to do more to protect this important national icon, especially after thousands of koalas perished during the bushfires in 2019 and last year. We need the Morrison government to act now. Time is running out for our threatened species like the koala.

My heart is breaking for Victorians who today are going into their fourth lockdown due to COVID-19. I know that this is very, very hard personally for families. I thank all Victorians for doing this for all of us. Until we are all vaccinated this is the only way we can hope to contain this dreadful virus. I had my AstraZeneca vaccine a couple of weeks ago because I became eligible to get it. I encourage everyone who is eligible to get vaccinated now to do so as soon as they can.

Our rollout of vaccinations has been incredibly slow. It hasn't only been slow, it's been completely botched from the start. The AMA has called for a strong community information campaign in the face of recent research that reinforces anecdotal evidence that vaccine hesitancy rates in Australia are increasing. In the United States Dolly Parton and others came on board to encourage people to get vaccinated. That was a great US advertising campaign. In the United Kingdom Elton John was in their campaign. In New Zealand they had a 'strong pathway to freedom' campaign. What did Australia have? Nothing—effectively no advertising at all about getting vaccinated. The Prime Minister says it's not a race, but it is a race, a race against the next wave of COVID-19, should that happen. Our vaccination rollout is proceeding at a glacial pace. We only clicked over to one million doses in the middle of April, and prior to that the Prime Minister had said we would have four million doses by the end of March.

I have never been one to envy the US health system but let's look at them. The United States is putting four million doses into people's arms every single day. The United States has delivered 175 million doses and the Morrison government has delivered one million doses. Half of adult Americans are vaccinated. The rollout needs to happen much quicker than it currently is. Around the world we're seeing virus mutations or virus variants start spreading in countries that were previously doing as well as Australia—countries that obviously aren't an island state. Obviously we get the benefit of being an island state.

Before this latest outbreak in Melbourne there were 17 other outbreaks from hotel quarantine in the last six months. Just to be clear, the current outbreak developed from an outbreak in a quarantine hotel in South Australia and the person travelled to Victoria. It doesn't matter where it occurred, but we know that hotels are not built for quarantine. The Prime Minister has been warned for many, many months that hotels are built for tourism not medical quarantine. Quarantine is squarely the responsibility of the federal government, the Constitution says so. There is no shirking that. Why won't the Prime Minister act on recommendations he's received for months now to build purpose-built quarantine facilities that will take the pressure off our CBDs and keep Australians safe—maybe also put some dollars back into the regions? These outbreaks are costing Australians enormously. The Prime Minister had two jobs: to get Australians vaccinated and to facilitate safe quarantine for those arriving in Australia. He's failed at both of those jobs.

Recently I met with a group of residents from Eight Mile Plains, a suburb in my electorate. Most of the people I met with lived in London Street, Eight Mile Plains, and many of them were long-term residents—some have been there for over 40 years. London Street is not far from Brisbane Technology Park, which is local business hub in Moreton. The technology park is a great place for work—some great innovation occurs there. However, it's not the best place for parking. Most people have had to pay to park on site so most of the workers who used to park there for free decided to park on local streets like London Street because, understandably, they don't want to pay for parking. This, of course, upset the local residents because their small suburban streets became clogged by cars that parked all day long. So the LNP Brisbane City Council introduced parking restrictions that prevent people parking on streets like London Street between 7 am and 10 am, which you might think is a good thing, but, sadly, it also means that the residents now can't park outside the homes that some of them have lived in for 40 years. The residents have then been told, 'You are not eligible for a parking permit.' The story of the residents of London Street, Eight Mile Plains is a common story. We see the issue of paid parking and its impact on suburban parking time and time again. There are numerous business hubs, like Brisbane Technology Park, all over the city of Brisbane, but little attention is paid to the impact that an increase in the number of commuters will have on the surrounding local residential infrastructure. Paid parking came in under the LNP city council's watch, and it has had a significant impact on areas like Brisbane Technology Park. It's time the Brisbane City Council and Lord Mayor Schrinner reviewed the parking scheme for the residents of London Street, Eight Mile Plains, so that a more practical, workable solution can be reached. The current scheme is unworkable.

Working families in Moreton are struggling with the cost of child care. The most recent data shows that local childcare fees went up by 8.4 per cent in just 12 months. I know wages didn't go up by the same amount. Across the country, childcare fees have skyrocketed by 35.9 per cent since the Liberals were elected. Australians pay some of the highest childcare costs in the world. The Morrison government's childcare system has failed to keep childcare costs down. Many local parents have raised this with me in the streets and at street stalls. There is a reasons that business groups, economists and other experts are all calling for urgent reform when it comes to child care. KPMG has estimated that childcare reform could generate between 160,000 and 210,000 additional working days a week. That's the equivalent of 30,000 to 40,000 full-time jobs just from fixing up child care. Reforming child care could generate GDP growth of between $4 billion and $11 billion per annum. This is low-hanging fruit. Making child care cheaper has a triple dividend: it's good for parents, it's good for children and it's good for the economy. Reducing the cost of child care allows more parents to work more hours, and then our economy benefits.

The design of the current childcare system means that many second income earners, usually women, are financially disincentivised from working a fourth or a fifth day in the week, when they're making those juggling decisions. In some cases, families lose money if the second income earner works more than three days. Even though the work is available, they would end up losing money. Labor's plan will cut childcare fees and put more money into the pockets of working families straightaway. Under our plan, 97 per cent of families will save money. What will we do? Labor will scrap the $10,560 childcare subsidy cap which often sees women losing money for that extra day's work; we'll lift the maximum childcare subsidy rate to 90 per cent; and we'll increase childcare subsidy rates and taper them for every family earning less than $530,000. Labor's cheaper childcare policy will be great for local families. More importantly, it will be helping the Australian economic recovery. This will be a boost in productivity and a boost for all families. We need the Labor Party to be elected so that we can roll out a cheaper, more affordable childcare system.

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