Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Arts) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister loves a photo op but the problem for him is that, when the cameras are on, often the voice is being recorded as well. Today we've seen time and again his comments catch up with him. I might add that one of my colleagues just sent me an article from 9 July: 'Prime Minister backs a pub offering free beer for vaccination'. So free beer for vaccination, the Prime Minister backs. Only minutes before question time, when Kieran Gilbert was asking the Prime Minister about no jab, no pay and about the incentives involved there, the Prime Minister claimed that that proposal which he had introduced—true—used his full authority of being the minister at the time, saying, 'Ít wasn't about increasing the rate.' He just referred to the child immunisation rate, and next sentence, 'It wasn't about increasing the rate.' When he introduced the no jab, no pay bill, what was the second sentence? It was: 'This is an important initiative aimed at boosting childhood immunisation rates.' What are you meant to do with a Prime Minister who just doesn't care about the truth at a time when we need public trust more than ever?

At a time when people believing and following what governments say matters, what do we get from this Prime Minister? We get things that are demonstrably untrue. Today, with passion, he says, 'Anyone who thinks that the Prime Minister only has two jobs is not up for the job', and all of his side went, 'Oh yes; hear, hear.' On 24 June, when he was there as the hologram in the corner, what did the Prime Minister say? He said:

The fact remains that the two jobs of this government are…

They were his own words on 24 June—'Here are the two jobs.' Today he says, 'Oh, if you think it's just that, you're not fit for office.' As far as he is concerned, about himself, he is absolutely right. He's not fit for office. He's failed on purpose-built quarantine and he's failed on the vaccination rollout.

I can tell you that the people I represent in this House are going through a hell of a time because of the failures of this government. We've got people right now home-schooling until they don't know when it will end. Home-schooling is hard enough at the best of times for any of us. Think about what home-schooling is like in a part of Sydney where 75 per cent of people speak a language other than English at home. Think about what home-schooling is like in a household where you've got more people than you've got rooms. Think about what home-schooling is like for some people more recently arrived under the refugee program who weren't trained in literacy in their own language. They are now going through this with no end in sight because of the failures of this government. If this government thinks they can just change the facts, side-step and pretend things didn't happen, well just know that they are being watched and people are suffering because of their failures.

What's been happening is the community have just moved to pick up the pieces themselves. When the government weren't running vaccination programs, our local doctors just went ahead and did it. My personal doc, my GP, Dr Jamal Rifi, gave up his front yard and the car park underneath his own surgery and just started doing testing and started doing vaccinations because this government wouldn't. A disability provider runs three centres in my electorate—in Lakemba, in Belmore and in Ashfield. All three had positive cases, and he rang me saying, 'I can't get the government to vaccinate the staff; can you organise it?' So my office did. The Exodus Foundation have gone with pop-up clinics as have the Lebanese Muslim Association, the Orion Centre and the Bankstown Sports Club, and we're organising it for Perry Park. People are being vaccinated now, but no thanks to those opposite. Those opposite have failed and the people in Sydney are paying the price for it. In my part of Sydney we are the home of essential workers. They don't have jobs where you can just get a laptop and do it from home. Try stacking shelves from a laptop. Try working in aged care from a laptop. Try working in any of these essential roles from a laptop—you can't. They have to turn up to work. They are turning up—most of them are not yet vaccinated, not because of hesitancy on their part, but because of a failure in messaging from the government and a failure in supply, which this government still doesn't seem to understand.

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