Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

The fact is that this Prime Minister went to the National Press Club at the beginning of this year, and it was he who said his job this year was to fix the COVID issue, to fix the pandemic. He said that was his job. Indeed, he did have two jobs—the effective rollout of the vaccine and appropriate fit-for-purpose national quarantine facilities—and he failed in both.

Earlier today, he had the hide to stand up and say at his press conference that this was an enviable success. Well, I would hate to see failure. There are two states in lockdown today: New South Wales and South-East Queensland. Victoria and South Australia have just emerged from lockdowns. There have been 15 deaths. There are 59 people in ICU. There are 314 Australians in hospital. We've had the lowest vaccine rollout in the advanced world and we're struggling to get into the top 80. And this Prime Minister stands up, like he did last year, saying we're at the front of the queue, full of hubris, all the arrogance on display for all to see, and thinks that people won't notice the failure which is there.

The fact is that this Prime Minister has been as slow as a wet week when it comes to actually delivering. He said repeatedly that it wasn't a race. It's not a competition. Today he thinks people are goldfish. He's apparently unaware that when you say things in parliament and at press conferences it's recorded. It's there, the record. He's a Prime Minister who objects to the tabling of his own words in this parliament because he doesn't want to be held to account. The fact is that he said it wasn't a race well after TGA approval, and he had received his vaccine already. He had received it, I had received it, but Australians couldn't get it.

He continued to say, 'We're at the front of the queue,' when we were way, way, way behind. He said that four million Australians would be fully vaccinated by March. He missed that target by 3.4 million. Missed it by that much! He then said that people in category 1a, aged-care residents, disability care residents and aged-care workers were going to get vaccinated by Easter. We know that now, in August, more than half of aged-care workers have not been fully vaccinated yet. We know the consequences of that. I'm feeling it in my electorate at the moment, at Summer Hill, in the aged-care facility that has a major outbreak as a result of this government's failure.

The fact is that this government could have, should have done better. Pfizer approached this government last July, but there had been deals done for more than one billion doses with 34 nations before we actually got our act together to do a deal. They didn't do enough deals with enough companies for enough vaccines soon enough. That's the truth of the matter. And they still continue to prevaricate over that. It's not a matter of hindsight. Chris Bowen was standing up in this parliament and in press conferences with myself and with other members of the Labor Party saying this last year, pointing towards international best practice. But, of course, they always reject anything that anyone other than the Prime Minister, who thinks he knows everything, comes up with.

The fact is they were against wage subsidies before they were for them. They said it was a dangerous idea. They were against increasing JobSeeker before they were in favour of it. They were against lockdowns. They were praising Premier Berejiklian: 'Good on you, Premier Berejiklian. New South Wales is staying open.' Remember that? They were the gold standard. We've seen the consequences of their hubris. Now they're against economic incentives. Well, we'll see where that goes. When Australians need leadership, this Prime Minister goes missing. He literally goes missing for days on end. For this Prime Minister, every job is too big and every response is too small. Promises are never delivered and targets are never reached. Now we have horizons, which we know are never reached.

Today we've put forward a constructive idea, as we did with wage subsidies. Again it was dismissed instantly by the government, like they did when they dismissed wage subsidies as an idea. This is the same Prime Minister who literally was the minister that brought in No Jab, No Pay in 2016. This essentially pays people who are vaccinated and withholds payments from people who are not. It literally is the same economic incentive. When he introduced it, his second sentence in the second reading speech was:

From 1 January 2016, the bill will ensure children fully meet immunisation requirements before their families can access the childcare benefit, childcare rebate or the family tax benefit part A supplement.

He said:

This is an important initiative aimed at boosting childhood immunisation rates.

That's what he said. It's a legal document. This is the basis of it. A second reading speech is a legal document that can be used in a court of law about the purpose of the legislation, and yet he stood at the press conference just before question time and said, 'No, it's got nothing to do with boosting immunisation rates—nothing to do with it at all. Nothing to do with it. No, it wasn't done necessarily as an incentive; it was done as a protection for the children who enter those childcare facilities.' 'As the person who put that in place, I can tell you why we did it,' he said. Seriously! That person, who is now the Prime Minister, who was the minister who introduced No Jab, No Pay, a direct economic incentive, was deliberately designed, as he said in the second reading speech, from the same motivation—the same economics 1A, which is that economic incentives work. They work, and that's what the studies have shown. That's why the Biden administration is doing it, that's why they're doing it in Europe, and that's why there are all sorts of incentives in the States. But, of course, the government are against it now.

I mean, this mob goes into shock when someone suggests spreading funding evenly instead of using it to pork-barrel Liberal and National Party marginal seats. That's essentially the problem here. If only we had got out a colour-coded map so that it only went to designated marginal seats, perhaps they would have got on board and adopted it and pretended, like they do with JobKeeper, that it was their idea. Perhaps they would have done that. They are the party of sports rorts, the party of regional rorts, the party of 'pork and ride'—commuter car parking where there's no train station. They have us believe that they're worried about those issues. The fact is that Australians responded magnificently to this pandemic, as they always do. They look after each other. They look after their families, their neighbours, their community, their nation. Because of a whole range of factors, not least of which is that we are an island continent with no land borders, we were in a very strong position, and that strong position has been squandered. At the same time as we see people attending Wimbledon, going to the Louvre and going about their lives and travelling internationally, what we see in Australia is that position being squandered.

In recent times, there's been a focus on the Olympics. The person who said it wasn't a race now keeps trying to speak about gold medals and running. This is what Cate Campbell had to say on Sunday:

... you find out what you're made of when things don't go your way; not when things are working well for you.

That's what she had to say.

We find out that this Prime Minister never accepts responsibility, always blames someone else, says something different from day to day and thinks that people won't remember, never wants to be held to account, never wants to provide transparency and never wants to provide leadership. Well, if he's not prepared to show leadership, there are people on this side of the chamber who are ready to show leadership—ready to show the leadership that is needed for this country. (Time expired)

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