Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Hansard source

I apologise, Mr Speaker. You've only got to look at the Prime Minister's behaviour since he became Prime Minister. This Prime Minister ducks responsibility. This Prime Minister says, 'I don't hold a hose, mate.' This is his excuse for going on holiday during appalling bushfires besetting our country. Ever since the pandemic started he hasn't wanted to take responsibility, he hasn't taken responsibility and he's still not taking responsibility. Every time something bad happens, he pushes everything off to the states. He's not grappling with what needs to happen now. We know what needs to happen in quarantine. We know that we need to have a dedicated facility in every state. Of course, it's pleasing for Victorians to think that the Commonwealth government has finally, after repeated entreaties from the Victorian government, accepted its responsibility for national quarantine. It's very good that we are to get a facility in Victoria, but what about South Australia? What about Western Australia? What about Queensland? What about New South Wales? And where is the expansion in the Northern Territory? Apparently, it's proceeding very slowly. We need to have a quarantine facility in every state. We need to have national responsibility for quarantine. We need to have national standards for quarantine, and that's because, sadly, this pandemic isn't going away.

I'll finish by saying the vaccination rollout needs to speed up. We don't just need national quarantine facilities. We don't just need the Commonwealth government, the Morrison government, to accept its responsibility for quarantine. What we actually need is the Commonwealth government taking responsibility for the vaccination rollout as well, making sure that, unlike the rest of the developed world, which has got on with vaccinating its population, the Australian population can be protected too. It's pathetic that just three per cent of our population has been vaccinated. In the United States, 50 per cent of adults are fully vaccinated and 70 per cent have had their first jab. There are similar numbers in Britain, much higher numbers in Israel—and you could go on. We're at about 100th in the world on vaccination. It's a pathetic effort. The Morrison government has failed in both the jobs that it had this year. It has failed at national quarantine and it has failed at vaccination.

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