Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I wish to commence where the previous speaker finished. I acknowledge the heartfelt and sincere contribution of the member for Dunkley around what would be fair to say is the shadow pandemic, or the other side of the COVID-19 pandemic, with regard to mammograms and breast cancer and whether people are accessing alternative treatments. But it's not just limited to breast cancer; it's the mental health impact. It's the shadow impact it's having on children's education. It's people not getting other check-ups that are having a direct impact on people's lives. They are likely to have a tale, which we will all experience, of preventable conditions and illnesses. Tragically, in some cases, the shadow pandemic also includes the claiming of people's lives through mental health crises all the way through to suicide. This is real, for all of us. It's the reason why we want this pandemic to be over as soon as possible. But it also brings into focus the measures that are being taken throughout this pandemic and whether they are proportional, justified and do more harm than good.

The Prime Minister, in the context of the National Health Amendment (COVID-19) Bill 2021, has made the point about the critical role the Doherty institute modelling plays, and that there is a point at which lockdowns cause more harm than the good they do. There's an official modelled number from the Doherty institute of 80 per cent, but frankly I would contest that; I am not suggesting that the Doherty model is wrong, but, in the end, I suspect the number is much lower than that. We already know that there is a trail of human tragedy both on the health front and the economic front that's already being experienced by many people from lockdown measures.

I start unapologetically with a deep reticence of the idea that that should always be our first result of a policy measure. We've gone through an interesting journey as a country in learning. The reality is that, last year, alpha did meet its match in lockdowns—

Dr Freelander interjecting—

but, this year, lockdowns have met their match in delta, and we need to be honest about that. The member for Macarthur's interjecting and he's welcome to do so in the spirit of free debate. I don't change my views just because somebody has a different opinion. I welcome and celebrate diversity of opinion. But I do think we need to acknowledge that if we're going to have a sincere and honest conversation, and, more critically, so that we take the community with us on whatever the next step of this journey is—and I was talking before about the legislation we passed at the start of last year, as the world, not just Australia, frankly, looked into the abyss of the consequences of this pandemic—because we are not at the end. And, when we hit 80 per cent vaccination, something I absolutely believe in very strongly—I'm already vaxxed, as I suspect most of the members of this chamber already are—that will not be the end, and we need to explain that to the public very clearly. But it does mean that we will enter a new chapter.

We'll enter a new chapter where, firstly, there is an expectation that people do get vaccinated and they accept their responsibility to get vaccinated. I regularly hear people talking about rights—that they have a right not to get vaccinated. I do agree, broadly; you do have the right to decide what goes into your body. I do agree with that proposition. But rights come with responsibilities. In the first instance, at least, if you care about yourself, which most people would hope, you will get vaccinated. But if you care about others, those that you love—those in your family, your friendship circles and elsewhere—you will understand that getting vaccinated isn't just about protecting yourself; it's about your responsibility to others. That's the other side of the rights coin. And it is of critical importance that, when that happens, we give Australians a pathway to make sure that they can access the vaccines they need.

Of course, there have been issues and delays in the rollout of the vaccine in Australia. No-one is pretending otherwise. We initially hoped we'd be able to produce a vaccine domestically, at the University of Queensland, Unfortunately, that didn't work out because it identified false positives for other conditions. We did hope that we would be able to use domestically produced AstraZeneca, but various decisions and recommendations by ATAGI, and, tragically, some members of this House deliberately undermining confidence in that vaccine in, seemingly, a desperate attempt for the vaccine rollout to fail, corroded public confidence. Make no mistake, I have always believed that AstraZeneca is safe and people should get it. Frankly, I wish I could have got it. I have a very high degree of confidence in that vaccine, but at the time it was not available. Of course, we have other vaccines that will come. Moderna and, obviously, Pfizer, and others will continue to roll out over time. This legislation is about getting those and, as people start to make inquiries about boosters—and people have been starting, including the Goldstein constituency—about making it clear that we have boosters on order. Boosters are on order and are going to start arriving towards the end of this year, so that, if any efficacy of a vaccine does wane, those who need boosters will get them.

This legislation is also about the government needing to extend its initial six-month time frame to be able to order more vaccines and more boosters as time goes on, because we don't know where this ends. I've had conversations, including with the member for Macarthur outside of the chamber, which I'm sure he won't mind me raising in a very anodyne way—that we've had the alpha variant, we've had the delta variant, but, if you go on the WHO website, it talks about other variants. We don't know what risks they pose and what that means for the health and welfare and safety of the Australian people. We need to empower the government to do everything it can to back the Australian people who take responsibility for themselves and for those that they love and care about. We sit in a dynamic environment where the mutations or variants that emerge will not necessarily originate in our country. Even with hefty quarantine measures, it may not end in a situation where we can keep them out.

I always caution against this, but some of the states are talking about locking themselves off from the rest of the country—and I do understand their ambition to avoid the risks of COVID-19; I genuinely do. But the tragedy is that, the longer you create a gap between the lived reality of a virus that spreads around the rest of the world and a population that does not have full antibodies or immunity to it, the more you end up in a situation over time where the gap becomes larger and the impact can be much more devastating.

I said in a speech to this chamber earlier that this is one of the tragedies of what occurred in the European settlement in Australia in the latter part of the 18th century, where viruses that were not previously exposed had an impact on a population who didn't have antibodies and then caused a terrible scourge. It is not the only basis on which we had a tragic loss of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander lives; but it has an impact, and, the longer you let that gap grow, the bigger the impact it can have.

This government is focused on what we need to do to get the population vaccinated. This government is committed not just to today but to what we need to do for the future and to continue to assist and adapt and provide the boosters that Australians need to protect themselves. But, critically, we need to do that swiftly. If you haven't had a chance, as a citizen of this country, to go out and get your vaccine, please do so; and do so quickly because the shadow pandemic, the physical conditions, the undiagnosed conditions, the education impacts, the mental health impact and the life impacts that the member for Dunkley raised are too real and, frankly, haven't been given the full consideration they deserve in a lot of the decisions that have been made, particularly by governments that have looked at matters through a singular focus.

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