Mike Freelander (Macarthur, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I know that we as a nation will get through this pandemic, but there've been inflection points throughout this long time—now almost 20 months—that have required definitive, strong action. We're now at such a time. Unfortunately we're not having the action that we should. Initially, at the beginning of this pandemic, the Prime Minister was off to the footy, if you all remember. He was off to the footy because he didn't recognise or understand how serious this pandemic was. Thankfully, the health minister was able to get the government to listen to the health advice and do the right thing, including closing the borders.

Vaccine procurement has been a major issue, and the Prime Minister has taken a prominent role in this. Unfortunately, he became fixated with the local manufacture of vaccines, initially of the Queensland University vaccine and then the AstraZeneca vaccine, made by CSL in Melbourne. The messaging regarding vaccines and vaccinations has been absolutely diabolical. There's a lack of supply of the Pfizer mRNA vaccine, which is the only one that is recommended for younger people. The messaging about this and its availability has been opaque and very poorly organised.

Many of my medical colleagues are increasingly frustrated by the problems that have been happening with vaccine procurement and the messaging from both state and federal governments. Unfortunately, my electorate is one of the electorates that are paying the price. I will read something I received from one of my medical colleagues who I know very well, who works in an accident and emergency department—not in a hospital in my electorate, but one nearby. This just came to me out of the blue. He said, 'Mike, I hope you're well back in parliament. I've been seeing COVID-sick patients who invariably are all unvaccinated. When I talk to them and their families and other unvaccinated patients coming into emergency, many tell me that they don't see credibility in the government and the health advice. Some feel that they've had their livelihoods taken from them from a government that doesn't care or understand, and they're very angry about the divisive line drawn in Sydney that's splitting the east and the west. Aren't we supposed to be all in this together? Can you help? Can you make our plight known?' That's from someone who works on the front line, and is now seeing many patients in Sydney who have COVID-19, some of whom are going to die, I believe, unnecessarily.

The messaging has been diabolical. The messaging we've heard here today from the assistant health minister, the member for Lyne, is that we're all in this together. We're not all in this together. Let me make that quite clear. The people who are suffering in this pandemic are the most disadvantaged and the poorest, and that is quite clear. We see stock markets at record levels, we see housing prices at record levels, and we see people who can work from home doing quite well. But those people who work with their hands, who provide services to us all, who get the economy moving, are the ones who are suffering the most, and will suffer the most, because of the poor management by this government and this Prime Minister.

We need a national response. We should have teams going into homes providing home immunisation. We should have at-risk people being vaccinated wherever they want to be vaccinated. We should have vaccine hubs in the most disadvantaged areas. We have no national leadership. The Doherty modelling is just that. It is not peer reviewed; it is just modelling. It's not the Ten Commandments. We should be having open discussion about how we approach this. We should have other opinions about modelling. We should be discussing the health advice without this opaque lack of leadership, these scripted responses from people in the Army with medals and ribbons across their chest. They are not the ones on the front line. We need a national response, and it's not coming. It's a disgrace! (Time expired)

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