Anne Stanley (Werriwa, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I find this government's handling of the COVID-19 pandemic astonishing. This week the government has put forward legislation to ensure that the minister for health can secure further vaccines without waiting for an allocation by appropriation, which can take up to six months. Eighteen months into the pandemic and 12 months since it was clear that vaccines would be available soon, to me it beggars belief that this government is so slow.

The endless New South Wales lockdown is also due to a slow government. The lockdown has cost billions of dollars a week and thousands of small businesses their livelihoods. Just imagine what a government could do with that money flowing through its economy. Instead, there is personal cost, and lives are damaged or lost. The Prime Minister may crow about 30,000 lives that weren't lost, but what about those that are gone too soon because of the government's inaction? These people have families who mourn. What about the toll on mental and physical health? And now cancer screenings are being put off. How many will lose their lives because they couldn't have the medical treatment they needed as our hospitals are more and more overwhelmed? Government is about responsibility and leadership. It is time we had a government and a prime minister willing to follow through with that.

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