Justine Elliot (Richmond, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the incompetence and mismanagement of both the Morrison government and the New South Wales Liberal-National government and in relation to tackling the pandemic and how this has severely impacted the people of the New South Wales North Coast. It has only really been in the last month that enough vaccines have actually arrived in our region so that people can get properly vaccinated. Prior to this, many people were waiting weeks or months, even, for an appointment. The fact is our community would have been fully vaccinated sooner, but we were not given enough vaccines. I've always strongly encouraged everyone to get vaccinated. It's the only way out of this pandemic—for your own health, for your family, for our community, to support our local businesses and support local jobs.

But this ongoing incompetence and mismanagement by both the federal and state governments has really shown the people in regional New South Wales that we are the forgotten people. That is how we are treated by both these governments. Firstly, to the Prime Minister: you failed to get enough vaccines initially. This was a race, and he didn't do it. And he failed to build quarantine facilities to protect us. The New South Wales government have repeatedly shown they have no concern about regional New South Wales, whether it's the rollout or the subsequent chaotic road map. It's all Sydney-centric to them.

In June, the New South Wales government failed to lock down Sydney straight away, when delta struck, which meant this catastrophe quickly spread throughout the state to the regions. Then they shamefully redirected our very limited supplies of Pfizer to Sydney. The New South Wales government then failed to give us a ring of steel on the North Coast to protect our community. This would have stopped people from lockdown areas coming into our region, and it would have meant easier access to Queensland, but they rejected that idea. On top of that, the New South Wales government's weak rules still allowed people from Sydney to easily come to our region while we were still denied access to enough vaccines. Throughout this time, we saw complete incompetence from North Coast Nationals MP Geoff Provest and his Sydney-centric government.

Next we had their chaotic and reckless roadmap—a roadmap based purely on statewide vaccination rates—and they continued to refuse to take into consideration the lack of supply of vaccines to the North Coast. This has resulted in complete chaos as so many people are unable to access services and businesses, so many staff are unable to work and so many businesses cannot open. Many of our outstanding local businesses have been devastated due to this gross mismanagement, because we didn't get enough vaccines supplied to us early on. Now we're looking at these very important booster shots—we know they're coming soon—and my message is very clear to the federal and state governments: do not leave the regions behind. The same applies for those important vaccines for the under 12s, when they are available.

The fact is the rolling incompetence, mismanagement and chaos of the Liberals and Nationals continue to place lives, jobs and businesses at risk on the New South Wales North Coast. Our community will not forget how the National Party betrayed us.

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