Matt Keogh (Burt, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Defence Industry) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] The Prime Minister had just two jobs—key jobs, in fact—last year. He'd had these jobs since the beginning of last year: the speedy and effective rollout of the vaccine and fit-for-purpose quarantine. He's failed at both. When he's been called out, he passes the buck. 'It's not my job,' he says. 'It's a matter for the states,' he says. 'I don't hold a hose,' he says. Yesterday he even tried to deny that he'd joined Clive Palmer in a High Court case to bring down the Western Australian border that has kept Western Australians safe and the WA resources industry, and therefore the national economy, strong. Despite it being clear in the court papers, the Prime Minister denied that it even happened—just more spin. When things get really hard, he goes AWOL completely. His habit of going missing and passing the buck is a real cost for Australians.

Our health is at risk. Children are stressed. Australians can see the Prime Minister for what he is, and Australians know that they deserve better. The Liberal government's handling of the pandemic has been an utter shambles. The Prime Minister said we were at the front of the queue for vaccines. In fact, we have one of the slowest rollouts in the developed world—worst in the OECD. So, ever the marketing man, this Prime Minister needed a new plan. When the Australian people saw through his ruse, the Prime Minister changed tack. Suddenly the rollout wasn't a race. Countries like the United States, Japan and the United Kingdom were all making deals to secure the Pfizer vaccine in July 2020. Australia didn't strike a deal until the end of the year. It is a race, and Australians are paying the price for this government's failures.

But the spin from the Prime Minister kept going. The Prime Minister promised that four million Australians would be vaccinated by the end of March this year. By that deadline, only 600,000 doses had been administered. The Prime Minister had hit 15 per cent of his target. The Prime Minister promised that all aged-care residents and workers would be vaccinated by Easter this year. We know that target still has not been hit. The Prime Minister has missed every target he has set. Now the rhetoric is all about 'horizons'. Well, the thing about a horizon is that it is always in the distance; you can never reach a horizon.

Now the Prime Minister, always the marketing man, has decided to play politics with the states, particularly with my state of Western Australia. You would think that, just maybe, he would have wanted to create distance from the New South Wales approach instead. But, of course, the Prime Minister thinks that is the gold standard. He has made the national cabinet unnecessarily divided. He undermines Labor premiers constantly while not criticising Liberal premiers, like those in South Australia and Tasmania, that have taken exactly the same approach. None has been singled out more by the Prime Minister than the Premier of Western Australia. The Prime Minister joined with Clive Palmer in an effort to bring down the Western Australian border. The Prime Minister talks down to WA, likening us to cave people and cave dwellers. He needs to realise there is in Australia, outside of New South Wales, an Australia that includes WA, a WA whose cave is completely free within, allowing people to go about their lives and, importantly, keep the whole nation's economy going. The Prime Minister has had his Treasurer out on his soapbox in recent weeks, allowing him to hold WA and other states to ransom, threatening to pull the economic rug from under us if lockdowns or restrictions are imposed after reaching 80 per cent of vaccinations of only those aged 16 and above. We won't forget that the Morrison government didn't provide financial support during the last lockdown in Western Australia either.

Everyone wants us to come out of this pandemic situation as soon as possible, but we don't forget that the Morrison government's handling of vaccines and quarantine, as well as being anti-lockdown, is why we are not coming out of this yet as a nation. The premiers support the plan, Labor supports the plan, but the Prime Minister is trying to dictate responses by the states that are not what the plan actually says. He is trying to create a fight to distract from his own failures. He is trying to confuse the electorate in the lead-up to the federal election, so he can try to shift blame to the premiers when he inevitably fails to deliver yet again. Australians are onto this Prime Minister and his marketing spin. He is failing to hold a hose, and he is pointing to anyone else to take responsibility.

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