Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Hansard source

I understand that in Appropriation Bill (No. 3) 2021-2022 and Appropriation Bill (No. 4) 2021-2022 there is about $16 billion for various things—purchases and services—that the government needs to provide. Of course, as is usual practice, we won't hold up supply and we will support these bills, but it would be remiss of me to not talk about some of the government services and supplies that these appropriation bills are referring to.

In recent weeks and months we've seen more evidence of the Prime Minister and the government not doing their job. We have seen Australian citizens let down again by this government and this Prime Minister. Anybody who listened to the Prime Minister prior to the opening of the state borders last year heard him talk a big game about what a great Christmas we were all going to have, but then of course we saw the pictures—and some of us saw it in real life—of the queues of people trying to access tests around the Christmas period and the overload on our systems. Then we had the lack of access to rapid antigen tests, or RATs. Everybody knows how difficult it was to get these. A number of pharmacies and chemists had signs up saying that they didn't have any supply.

We said to the government, 'You really should be able to provide them under Medicare like you do the PCR tests.' I still don't understand the difference between getting a rapid antigen test and getting a PCR test and why the government pays for one and not the other, particularly when the rapid antigen tests are cheaper than the PCR tests under Medicare. I also don't understand why the government purchased those rapid antigen tests so late in the piece. We were opening up in December and most of the tests were not ordered until January. How did this happen when the government was getting so many warnings last year? All the other countries overseas were using rapid antigen tests for many months prior to Australia making a decision to open.

We heard from the Prime Minister: 'Maybe I shouldn't have been so optimistic. We didn't know omicron was coming.' What an absolute load of rubbish! We did know omicron was coming. We did know that we'd need rapid antigen tests. The Prime Minister wants to pretend that it's all very well with hindsight. He knew. He got multiple warnings from the Australian Medical Association. We could see what was happening overseas. We still don't have a proper answer as to why enough of them were not ordered in time.

It's not just the rapid antigen tests that the Prime Minister has let us down on. There are of course the booster shots. Trying to get family members a booster shot has been unbelievably difficult. I still have today family members who can't get in to get a booster shot. They are now waiting another week or two to get their booster. This is still happening today in Australia—people are not able to access a booster shot. We were all told: 'You can go out and get a booster shot. We're opening up to this. We're moving it from four months to three months. Everybody can go and get them.' That is not true. It's not that easy to get a booster shot.

Pharmacists are working so hard trying to give the vaccine to as many people as they possibly can as quickly as they possibly can, but they too were let down by the government. They were let down by the government when it came to the booster shots and how we could get them in people's arms. The government changed the time frames and said everybody could go and get them. They kept changing the rules to get people through quicker, but they didn't make better provision for people to be able to get their booster shot. They didn't make sure that there was a surge workforce to give all of these injections.

So we had a complete failure on the booster shots and a complete failure on the rapid antigen tests. This, of course, is because, as we were told last year, 'It's not a race.' It originally was not a race to get everybody vaccinated, according to the Prime Minister. We have been continually let down by this government.

The other place that we've been really dramatically let down has been in the aged-care system. I want to pass on my sympathies and condolences to all of those families who have lost loved ones during this particular outbreak. In January I talked to some of the aged-care providers in my electorate and in my home state of Tasmania about just how difficult this has been for them. They were getting confusing advice. There were not enough rapid antigen tests for staff and for residents. The advice about whether every resident needed to be tested if there was an outbreak, or every staff member, or just those on shift—it was a shemozzle. There was a lack of clear direction coming from the Commonwealth.

The Commonwealth runs aged-care services. Again, we have an incompetent minister who, for some reason, is still in the job, which I just can't fathom. I don't think anybody can, actually. He has completely gone missing in this. They promised a surge workforce. The surge workforce wasn't there. We heard revelations in Senate estimates today that some facilities are closing down because they don't have the staff to continue to operate. What's going to happen to these older Australians when the home that they are living in is forced to close because there are not enough staff? That is on the minister and the Prime Minister for not doing their job. They knew what would happen when the borders opened. They knew what would happen when we had to 'live with the virus', to quote the Prime Minister. How has this been allowed to happen? Imagine being the family members of these aged-care residents, where they've got outbreaks in facilities. They're frightened for their loved ones and now they're being told, 'We don't have enough staff to care for your parent'—or your loved one—'so we're going to close the facility.' Where are the older Australians in these facilities going to go when the facilities have to close because the government didn't do its job? It's not good enough. Too many people have suffered because the government didn't do its job. It didn't do enough and it didn't do it soon enough. That is the reality.

When it comes to aged care, that sits firmly on the shoulders of the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services. I'll never forget that COVID select committee where he was asked how many older Australians had died, when he rustled through the papers because he didn't know. It's his job to know. But, after what happened with the warnings and what happened in those homes last year, to open the borders to live with the virus and not to have a better plan for aged care is just staggering. It's not just incompetent; it really is bordering on—I don't want to say, Deputy Speaker; I'd probably be deemed unparliamentary. But I cannot fathom how somebody says, 'The number of older Australians who die is not a performance indicator of my job,' how he has got such an attitude to this. These are people's lives. We had the Minister for Health and Aged Care in question time today stand up and say, 'Oh well, you know, some of them were palliative anyway,' and compare the situation to other countries. They knew they could have saved more lives if they had done more soon enough. That is the reality. Instead we had the minister stand up with this number salad, as though somehow this was going to actually satisfy the families. Has he talked to the staff of these facilities? Has he spoken to the families about what's going on? Has he spoken to the people trying to run the facilities? The only reason the system is holding together at all is the diligent staff, who are going above and beyond, running around in these aged-care facilities, trying to take care of older Australians. It's been an absolute disaster.

In my home state of Tasmania, schools went back last week, and already we've got outbreaks in a whole heap of schools. Already we've got parents saying: 'We don't have enough RATs. We need to get some RATs.' It's not going swimmingly. We've got inconsistent advice again coming from governments. We've got a lack of rapid antigen tests in our schools. In Tasmania we actually had our education minister resign last week because she got stuck overseas with COVID. She was on leave instead of trying to make sure that kids and parents were all sorted and the system was all okay for the kids to go back to school. We've had a failure of the state and federal Liberal governments when it comes to the kids going back to school.

But we've also had a complete failure by the federal government and the state Liberal government in Tasmania when it comes to our state's infrastructure. We had a range of questions in estimates on Monday about the Hobart City Deal. It's just extraordinary. We had $25 million promised for a rail corridor and for a study into a rail corridor, and it turns out that the state government have been sitting on a report that says this corridor is not viable but hadn't told anybody! Indeed, only $2 million of the $25 million has actually been spent. There was a big signing for this Hobart City Deal. It was touted. There were the usual big pictures. Hundreds of millions of dollars were, allegedly, coming to Hobart. It was all announcement and no delivery. So far we've had $2 million spent.

We had $300 million set aside for a runway on the Antarctic Territory—it's a long way from the city of Hobart, but apparently it was included—which they had to abandon, of course. The Minister for the Environment has said that it's not going to proceed. We don't know what's happening to the $300 million that was earmarked for the runway down on the Antarctic. I hope it's coming to Greater Hobart, but who knows where that $300 million is or has gone, or what's happening to it. Then, of course, we've got the Bridgewater Bridge, which has been promised more times than I can count. We still don't even have a final design. Nothing's happened. It's been years. Nothing's happened. It's just extraordinary that the governments have gotten away with this. They come down and talk about hundreds of millions of dollars for this great deal—and absolutely zip. We've had a complete failure to deliver at both the state and federal level.

Indeed, the only thing happening in my electorate is the removal of the Hobart Airport roundabout, which is a project at that interchange to allow traffic to go further south-east into the member for Lyons's electorate, past the airport. Of course, that project was actually first announced by Labor. It was an election commitment that we made back in 2013. If Labor hadn't made that commitment, nothing would have happened. The government certainly wasn't going to do anything. It had to make a commitment, but it was for less money. The design is terrible and won't stand the test of time, because the commitment was not enough, unlike Labor's commitment at the time. But this is the only project that has happened in my electorate under nine years of this government—the only one. All the other projects in my electorate happened under the former Labor government where we got a commitment and they were in the budget when Labor left office. Seriously, what has been happening with infrastructure in Tasmania under this government is a complete disgrace, and my constituents have had enough of it. They're sick to death of all of this promise, promise, promise and nothing ever turning up.

Frankly, all these promises and the Prime Minister or the minister flying in and signing all these things, are consistent with what this government does time and time again—all announcement, no delivery. You sort of expect the Prime Minister to come, but we don't know what he's going to dress up as next. So far we've had the racing car driver, we've had the pilot, we've had the hairdresser and we've had the ukulele player. I'm wondering what comes next. Is he going to drive a digger next, with his hard hat on? Where's he going to go next? Seriously, Australians are over it. He's got to stop dressing up and pretending to be somebody else and do the job we're paying him for. We want the Prime Minister to do the job he is being paid for, not to play silly games, not to dress up for announcements, not to go around doing silly stunts. We want him to deliver. We want him to deliver on stuff like infrastructure, which is productivity-changing and creates jobs. We want him to deliver on health care. We want him to make sure that every Australian that needs one can get a rapid antigen test. We need him to make sure that all Australians can access a booster for their COVID vaccination. Seriously, he needs to get on with the things that matter to Australians. He needs to do his job, the job that he is being paid for.

Australians are over it. The Prime Minister knows Australians are over it. We've seen a whole heap of scare tactics over the last couple of weeks in parliament while he tries to dodge and, 'Look over here,' and change direction. The big scare campaigns are coming out. But, seriously, Australians just want him to do his job—the one we're paying him for. If he can't do his job, he should get out of the way and call the election.

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