Chris Hayes (Fowler, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Colleagues, I ask you: who would have thought, after 18 months of being in this pandemic, that we would still be experiencing harsh snap lockdowns? This might have been something you would have expected at the start, as the government tried to suppress the virus, but we're experiencing it now. My community in south-western Sydney is now subject to a harsh lockdown. It's been made very clear that the government has really had two fundamental jobs during the pandemic. I know there might be other things that governments do, but there are two fundamental jobs: it has to have a proper quarantine system and a properly rolled out vaccine. On those two assessments it has failed. It has failed miserably. So they should have a third responsibility: they should be apologising to the Australian public.

Like many, I was in lockdown last week, and I was certainly glued to my television set. I was thrilled to see the performance of our Australian athletes. Emma McKeon has now become the most decorated Australian Olympian. All the efforts of the Australian team have really made us all proud. It's something that we've seen and something we can celebrate—an uplifting part, particularly during this pandemic. But, I've got to say, when you compare the success of our Olympic team with the race against this virus, it would be like what Malcolm Fraser did previously when he called for a royal commission into the poor performance of the Australian Olympic team. You would have a royal commission into this government, based on their efforts for the pandemic.

It's very difficult in my community in Western Sydney, and I know the member for Werriwa, the member for McMahon, the member for Blaxland and other are all going through this out there as well. It's very, very difficult in our communities. This virus escaped from Bondi, when the Prime Minister didn't want to close down the eastern suburbs, and got to Western Sydney. Unlike Bondi, our communities have larger family units, certainly with more people living under one roof. Ours is the most multicultural area of the country, where we receive the majority of refugees who come into our nation, and English is not a first language there. In terms of our workforce, it's basically trades and blue collar. The idea that people can just work from home—we will give you an edict that you will work from home—well, you can't work from home if you are in the construction industry. I know you would know that, Deputy Speaker Wallace, given your background. For tradesmen in our areas, we have little employment opportunity in Fowler. People go somewhere else to work. Tradesmen go from jobs to jobs, construction sites to project sites, et cetera. So simply saying, 'Work from home,' doesn't really work. And if you extrapolate that to educating kids with home schooling—I know my daughter who is a teacher finds that difficult, even with her own kids, let alone doing her year 12 tutorials. But doing that from a background where English is not your first language, and trying to keep your kids up to speed and all the rest of it, is very, very difficult in communities like those I represent in south-west Sydney.

The other aspect is that the feeling of anger that's out there is extraordinary. It's not that they're not doing their part to suppress the virus; they are doing that. But family interaction in our community is certainly based on not only the social and the cultural but also the spiritual. Our churches are doing a wonderful job with their communities in looking after not only their spiritual wellbeing but also their mental wellbeing. But we have this feeling of anger because of the way the people of south-west Sydney are being treated in comparison to the way that the people of Bondi were treated and are currently being treated. You only have to look at your TV screen at night to see the difference in policing or, at least, what appears to be a difference in policing in Bondi Beach. Down in our electorates of Liverpool or Fairfield or in my particular area of Cabramatta, it is vastly different. I don't actually see the horses walking along Bondi Beach. I don't see people walking in black riot gear and all the rest of it. Our community is feeling that it has been singled out and that it has been singled out because of a virus that escaped the eastern suburbs because the government failed to close it down early enough.

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