Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Early Childhood Education) Share this | Hansard source

RISHWORTH () (): We are coming to the end of another term of this parliament. We may only have a few sitting days left to go. It's time to give a report on this government, I think. My electors and people in my electorate have been consistently telling me that this Morrison government deserves an F for failure. It is disappointing that the government, during this last term, and indeed for the almost a decade that they have been in government, have failed to properly understand the needs of people in my community. When we look at this pandemic, right from the beginning this Prime Minister said that it wasn't his job to do so many things. He failed to order enough vaccines. He failed to roll out the vaccines properly. He failed to build fit-for-purpose national quarantine facilities to stop the virus entering the country. He failed to order enough rapid antigen tests. And he fails to ensure that there is a proper national plan. He will talk about a national plan, but the truth is that states and territories do not have confidence in this Prime Minister, and they've actually gone and done it themselves.

Time and time again, when this Prime Minister and this government have been called out about some of these failures, what is the response we get? 'Well, it's not my job. I'm not responsible for this.' Where is the leadership in this? During this pandemic, Australians have been crying out for leadership, and what have we got? We've got a Prime Minister who has constantly picked fights, usually only with Labor premiers but sometimes with his Liberal counterparts as well, and run commentary on their performance but who has never himself taken responsibility. Of course, it hasn't just been when it comes to the pandemic; it's the bushfire recovery, the robodebt, the awful neglect that was already in aged care, the huge amount of rorting schemes—sports rorts, car park rorts. It's just more and more excuses, more and more 'It's not my fault.' This passing of the buck has just got to stop. Australians deserve better. Australians deserve a leader, a Prime Minister, who will take responsibility and not just pass the buck, not just do a fancy announcement and never actually deliver something properly to the community. I mentioned vaccines. If we think about the vaccine rollout, Australia's vaccine rollout left us vulnerable. The lack of supply left us vulnerable as a country. I heard countless reports from constituents in my electorate who desperately wanted a vaccine but just couldn't find one. I heard many reports from GPs who were confused about how to obtain the vaccine and the process of administration.

Earlier this year I still had parents contacting me about how to get a vaccine for their child. As late as this year parents were scrambling for appointments. They were booking in at various places trying to get a vaccine. One local example is Lauren from Morphett Vale, who said that she was very anxious and uncertain about her kids going back to school. This was compounded by the fact that her kids would not get even their first shot before heading back to school. She was unable to secure an appointment earlier.

This just isn't good enough. We also have a booster rollout that is slow and was delayed by the original slow vaccine rollout. When the Prime Minister said it was not a race I think it sent shivers down so many people's spines. It was a race. It still is a race. We need this Prime Minister and government to stand up.

Of course, this is not the only example of where the Prime Minister and this government have been slow to act. It was the same story when it came to rapid antigen tests this summer. Rapid antigen tests have been used in the US, the UK and many other countries around the world to get people back to work safely, to get kids back to school and to start to return to normal life. Instead, in Australia at the most vulnerable stage of the pandemic, when we were seeing case numbers increase significantly here on our shores, we had many people lining up for PCR tests and not being able to get a PCR test. They were driving around. Belatedly it was announced that they could use rapid antigen tests, but they couldn't find any of them because the government hadn't actually planned for this. They hadn't prepared for this. The government belatedly had to be dragged kicking and screaming to announce their program for concession card holders. They left many vulnerable people being ripped off and many people being undiagnosed. People were travelling around suburbs, cities and towns searching in vain for these tests.

Of course COVID has had a massive impact. I think there are a lot of small businesses in my electorate that are feeling quite frustrated about some of the rhetoric of the Prime Minister and the Treasurer. If you read between the lines, they're saying that Australians have never been better off. That is not the real lived experience of many small businesses in my electorate. Most recently I met with Chris who owns a cafe in the Colonnades shopping centre. Chris purchased this cafe in the Colonnades in January 2020—not a great time. Since then she and her team of 10 staff have been working hard to continue to service their customers, but trade is tough at the moment with the increased density restrictions in South Australia and low foot traffic because people are scared. Even if people can go to the shops, they are worried and are not going. Chris shared that, throughout the whole pandemic, right now is the hardest it has been for her business. Yes, that's right—lockdowns were better for Chris than now. She told me she just sold her house to keep her small business afloat.

For the Prime Minister to say that the economy is going great guns ignores the real lived experiences of so many small businesses in my electorate. Their businesses may never be the same again. They may not make it through. We need to really understand that, despite some of these headline economic figures, there are people who are really doing it tough and deserve our recognition and our support.

In the pandemic we have been left vulnerable as a result of a health system already under significant strain. Look at my own state of South Australia and at ramping in particular. For those who don't know what ramping is—although it's a term you don't need to explain in South Australia—it is when an ambulance goes out for an emergency, picks someone up and then sits in the driveway of the hospital because there just isn't the capacity in the hospital. Now, ramping in South Australia's hospitals was a problem before omicron, but it is now a significant problem, and it has been compounded by this government's, as well as the South Australian government's, failure to properly prepare for the onslaught of omicron.

I'll give you just one example. Last year I was contacted by a family in Aberfoyle Park who were forced to call an ambulance when they were unable to see the local doctor. After calling triple 0 for an ambulance, the family were left waiting for over two hours for it to come to Aberfoyle Park. This family said it wasn't the first time they'd been left waiting for an ambulance in the last year; the mother said she'd experienced a heart episode and after calling the ambulance she had to wait for the ambulance and then was left ramped and waiting for treatment for four hours.

In addition, we have seen the issues around our hospitals compounded by this Morrison government's failure to properly address the primary healthcare system, particularly in terms of GP shortages. My local communities in the southern suburbs are facing shortages of GPs that are preventing many residents from accessing the basic healthcare they need. Those with regular GPs are waiting too long to get an appointment, and many doctors in the southern suburbs are stretched so thin they've been forced to close their books to new patients. Over 300 residents in my community have gathered together in just a few short weeks to sign a petition calling on the federal government to address this GP shortage. Constance from Morphett Vale says: 'Sometimes I've waited up to three weeks or more. I have heart failure, lung failure and kidney failure. I feel very afraid. I'm unaware when I will need to access a doctor. Please help us in the south.' Milton from Reynella East says: 'I've waited up to two weeks. This is just not good enough. We should not have to wait two weeks to see a doctor.' And Shirley shared her experience: 'I have to wait at least three weeks or four weeks for an appointment. I feel so sorry for our overworked doctors.' Once again, this is a government that has failed to plan for our primary health system, and these are the consequences.

Then, of course, as we've heard throughout the media recently, on our aged-care system—which, we know, has been neglected by this almost-decade-old government—the pandemic has opened our eyes to the existing problems in aged care and has exacerbated them significantly. There have been over 600 deaths this year. There are a thousand outbreaks right now in aged care. Tens of thousands of aged-care residents have not got their booster shots. Over half the aged-care workforce have not got their booster shots. And, as I speak, 12,000 residents and workers are infected. This is just not good enough. Where is the government? I will not accept from this government: 'It's not my responsibility.'

So, when it has come to the pandemic, this government has failed to plan and failed to act. It has loved the announcement, but has never been there to actually deliver.

But the failures stem from many, many years back. Let's look back at some of the issues that I have had to constantly fight on for my local community. The NBN has been an issue and is still, after this government came to office in 2013 and ripped up a plan that was starting to deliver proper long-term results for communities by building the infrastructure right, first—first time. But of course, no; Tony Abbott, the then Prime Minister, thought that this was just about watching Netflix; he failed to understand the absolutely critical need of small businesses for at-home internet. Of course, this has been exacerbated by the pandemic, when many people have been told that they have no other option but to work from home. I've heard countless frustrations from those my community who have had to rely on this government's infamous copper to the node, where new copper was laid where the old copper was. It is failing to deliver the results that so many residents need.

Of course, the government have sheepishly put out that, yes, they realise it's been a bit wrong and they're going to go back and pull up the copper they just laid and replace it with fibre. But only 10 per cent of households that are relying on this copper and the failed HFC network are actually going to benefit from this. That leaves the suburbs Aberfoyle Park, Flagstaff Hill and many others. Having had new copper laid, every time there's rainfall they lose their internet. They get promised speeds of up to 100 megabits by internet companies but can't get past 10 or 20 megabits. This is failure on a grand scale and shows the lack of vision that this government has had.

On more local issues, we've had failure in many grants programs. I think very much of the South Adelaide Football Club. It's a great football club. It wants women's change rooms. It dutifully applied for federal government funding for women's change rooms, and, I'm sure, was rated very highly by Sport Australia, but it was dudded during the sports rorts fiasco. It did not get the money it deserved for women's change rooms. Instead, the funding went to a rugby club in South Australia without women's sport, yet it was for women's change room facilities. My community, rightly, have given this government a big F for failure on the report card for this term. I'll be working hard as we approach the next election to make sure the positive alternative is put out there, and we will let the Australian people decide.

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