Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I too rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021. It's obviously so important to make sure that the money and the security is there, but at the same time we have to look at the reasons we're in this situation today. It's because of the Prime Minister's and the government's inaction, failure to roll out vaccines and failure to have quarantine facilities that we are in this devastating situation right across the country.

As we've said, Labor supports the bill. It's important to get that money out to communities in lockdown and also to support those people who have been impacted by the lockdowns. In regions like mine, people who work in industries that have been affected by the reduction of people in our areas desperately need support. Businesses are suffering. The workers are suffering. They need urgent assistance. Particularly for border communities like mine, it has been a challenging time. We're in this very confusing situation for locals, and we're in that situation because the Prime Minister failed to do the jobs he was supposed to do. That's the reason—that's what locals say to me all the time, 'We're in this chaos because of the Prime Minister's failures.' As I said, he failed to get enough vaccines, bungled the vaccine rollout and then didn't establish quarantine facilities. That's why we're in this dire situation. We have called, time and time again over the past 12 months, to fix this situation urgently because it's having massive health and economic ramifications right across the country. Indeed, it's now costing the economy about $300 million each day. That's the price Australians are paying for this Prime Minister's incompetence.

Make no mistake: the Prime Minister's incompetence is putting the economy, lives and jobs at risk. This is an ongoing crisis that's still not being addressed and the nation has been plunged into uncertainty and so much disruption. As I said, the Prime Minister had two jobs this year and he has failed at both. He's a Prime Minister who fails to take responsibility—he always blame somebody else about something. Prime Minister: just start doing your job! Start fixing this problem! He has consistently failed the nation. He has failed people right across the nation. We now only have 15 per cent of Australians fully vaccinated because of the Prime Minister's failures.

We have been calling on the Morrison government to fix this bungled rollout, to deliver quarantine facilities and, of course, to provide the one-off $300 payment to every fully vaccinated Australian. Doing that would make such a difference, it really would, in terms of meeting those vaccination targets. The faster they're achieved then the faster the recovery is as we emerge from the lockdowns. So we would really like to see the government adopt our proposition of that $300 payment to every person who is fully vaccinated by 1 December, and yet the Prime Minister just continues to shirk all responsibility. We're asking him to listen to this idea and to take action. We'll keep putting forward really constructive solutions like this. This would be another incentive for Australians to be fully vaccinated and it would also deliver much-needed assistance for those businesses and workers who are really struggling in the lockdowns.

In terms of COVID in New South Wales: the failure of the New South Wales Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, to lock down Sydney early enough has also plunged my region, the North Coast of New South Wales, into ongoing chaos. This aversion that the Liberals and Nationals have to lockdowns is now causing this rolling chaos across the nation, and we're living with the consequences of their inaction—because the New South Wales Premier failed to lock down early enough. Make no mistake: this situation is an absolute disgrace and it really shows the people of the North Coast of New South Wales that, when it comes to the Liberals and Nationals at all levels of government, we are the forgotten people. They show this time and time again.

As I have previously said to the House, we saw last week—in a move of utter contempt—the New South Wales Premier taking our already limited supplies of Pfizer from regional New South Wales and redirecting them to Sydney. All throughout regional New South Wales they're being taken back to Sydney. I have been contacted by so many people who are distressed, frustrated and angry and who are having their appointments cancelled. So many have to wait for months and months. As I said earlier in the House, I am calling on the Morrison government, the Berejiklian government and their agencies to come clean and tell us how many they have taken from our region. How many Pfizers do we actually have? Our community just wants the facts and yet we don't ever seem to get them.

We have been left vulnerable again by the New South Wales Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, who failed to lock down Sydney early enough. The Premier also failed to designate a New South Wales border zone to protect us and the Premier failed to have adequate COVID compliance checks at Ballina airport. We have been consistently in the situation where the New South Wales Premier and the New South Wales government have failed to give us timely information about local cases and exposure sites. People don't know what's happening; they're just not coming clean.

Again, the North Coast community has had to pay the price for the failures of the Prime Minister and the New South Wales Premier. It's a situation that's an absolute disgrace and it does show that we are the forgotten people under the Liberals and Nationals. Whether it's at a federal level or at a state level they're consistently failing our community. As we've said, this is why we're in this situation. The Prime Minister has to start taking responsibility and start doing his job. This crisis must be fixed. We have seen this bungled vaccine rollout and we've seen no quarantine facilities which are adequate in place. This must be fixed—there's an urgency here for the health of people across the country and also for our economy to be able to rebuild. I urge the Prime Minister to act; we need to fix this situation urgently.

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