Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Hansard source

'Politics is not about power; it is about people—representing those people and speaking up for them loudly, often and passionately. I have lived my life by this motto: I promise not to be silent when I ought to speak. That is my commitment to the people of the Riverina and to this parliament.' They are the words I used to conclude my inaugural speech to the House of Representatives in 2010.

It is with a heavy heart I come to this dispatch box to make my contribution to this censure motion. I don't believe this motion is necessary.

I appreciate what the Prime Minister just said. I absolutely respect the office of the Prime Minister, and it might cause some chagrin to my colleagues, but I respect the Prime Minister himself, the member for Grayndler. He and I have had a very good relationship over 12 years. I'm sure that will continue. He and I got some good things done in the aviation space when, indeed, it probably wasn't popular in his area of the world to do that, and I appreciate what he did. I also appreciate the fact that, when I lost the deputy prime ministership, he, along with everybody else, gave me a standing ovation. That was a hard day. It was a difficult day.

It's been a very difficult day for the member for Cook today. I'm a friend too of the member for Cook, and I respect what he has done for this nation. I can well remember being the Deputy Prime Minister not long after 1 March 2020 when James Kwan in Perth became the first Australian to die from COVID-19. I well remember the Chief Medical Officer, Professor Brendan Murphy, telling very few members around a very important table in a very high-level meeting, the fact that we could potentially lose tens of thousands—even 50,000—people, and it could be in a matter of weeks, due to a global pandemic. They were extraordinary times. They were difficult times.

I can remember being basically locked up without a phone, without access to much of the outside world, as we heard those grim predictions and forecasts by the Chief Medical Officer. The chief of defence was there, as was the former member for Kooyong, the Treasurer at the time, and the former member for Flinders, the Minister of Health. The member for Cook was there, of course, and so was I. There were others too, but not many. I can remember the eyes darting around the room, as it was explained to us that we had a big, big problem on our hands.

I remember, sometime after that but not long after, that it became apparent that the member for Flinders was not going to be in one of those high-level meetings. The question was asked, 'What will happen if he becomes incapacitated?' We'd already had members of the government hospitalised with COVID. These were extraordinary times. I think we almost live, these days, right now, in a fog of memory lapse about how difficult they were.

We were seeing on morning television—by the hour, every hour—updates on not how many deaths or cases there were but how many suspected cases there were. Police were tasked with the job of running around and making sure that people were in their homes and wearing masks and not being outside their local government areas. These were extraordinary times. We were basically on a war footing. The chief health officers right around the nation were fearful that we were going to have a repeat of the Spanish flu, which happened at the end and a few years afterwards of World War I. We lost tens of thousands of Australians—in already extraordinary times, given the fact that so many were coming back from a war that claimed the lives of 60,000 on the battlefields of Europe and elsewhere.

It sent a shiver down our spines that Mr Kwan had died, that others were dying, and that we needed to close our borders. We need to do whatever it took to keep Australians safe. We put in place JobKeeper. We've heard today—it's not politicising it—that it saved 700,000 jobs. It did. I often hear from those opposite—and I'm not being political; I'm not being partisan—'What did we get for the debt that we're now in?' What we got was people's jobs saved.

I appreciate that, Meryl Swanson. But we also had peoples' lives being protected, being saved. The member for Cook was leading that, and I know he's a man of faith. I know he has his faults. Who doesn't? My goodness, I've got untold faults. Just ask my wife. But he took decisions that he needed to keep Australians alive—not just their jobs protected but them alive.

I know he made the point, and it's one of those difficult points to make, that, had he been asked—he was doing daily press conferences. Being a former journalist, I often wonder why journalists just didn't say to him, 'Prime Minister, what would happen if the Minister for Finance' or the minister for whatever portfolio 'came down with COVID?' I'm sure he would have said, 'I'll fill that role or appoint somebody else.' Maybe that's not an excuse. I see a couple of members murmuring and shaking their heads. But, at the time, it was low level compared to the ramifications of losing 50,000 Australians. The member for Cook knows that some of the things done at the time were not right. There was no book that we could have got down from the shelf and opened to find, 'This is what we do on day 25 of a pandemic.' We made decisions based on what we thought was best for all Australians.

I was asked, when I received the email from former Justice Virginia Bell AC, how I would respond and if I would respond through a lawyer or an email. No, I faced her, because that's the way I am. I spent more than an hour on 18 October answering her questions and telling her what I recalled. Somebody said, 'What are you going to say?' I said, 'I'm going to tell her the truth.' It's always a good place to start. My mother told me that. My mother was always right, as is my wife. And I did tell the truth. It was a long and wide-ranging interview, let me tell you. I spoke honestly and from the heart about what had actually occurred during those darkest days. I made the point to her that, had a journalist asked—and those opposite may say it's no excuse; I should have told them, but there were lots of other things that were going on at the time that took precedence.

I'm not going to say it was just an oversight by the Prime Minister—I wasn't the Prime Minister; I wasn't in his shoes—but he carried the hopes, the weight and the burden of a nation afflicted by a global pandemic. At the same time as Australians were being kept safe by the policies that we were putting in place, people were being buried in mass graves in New York and coffins were being loaded up in Italy to the point where funerals were being delayed and churches were filled with coffins which couldn't be held in morgues. Italy and the United States of America have good health systems, as do we—and I thank those health professionals who kept us safe as well. I thank all Australians for what they did.

I don't believe that this censure motion is necessary. Recommendations have been made by the Bell inquiry. I think they are sufficient. I do believe that we should ensure that parameters are put in place so that, if we were to have such a case again—and God forbid that we do—and if there were to be a conflict or another global pandemic, a future Prime Minister would tell the public, tell the fourth estate, tell colleagues and tell Australia about what is going on. But I earnestly and honestly believe that the former Prime Minister did the very best he could in times which were extraordinary and in times which were unprecedented.

None of those opposite were in those meetings—they were not. They didn't have the weight of responsibility of 16- to 18-hour days, day after day, and being told by the Chief Medical Officer that tens of thousands of people are going to die. They didn't have to deal with premiers, who, quite frankly, could have been a little bit more collaborative and cooperative in the National Cabinet process. Somebody said to me on the weekend: 'Dan Andrews was re-elected. I'm surprised; he's the worst Premier we've had.' I said that Dan Andrews also followed the medical advice he was given, and I give credit to him for that. I realise that Victoria was under very strict lockdowns. My daughter, Georgina, lives there, and I know the difficulty that she had in teaching her classes.

I congratulate Mr Andrews on his election win, and I congratulate Mr Albanese on his back in May. There is no greater privilege and honour than to lead a political party, a state or a nation. I know that the member for Cook held dearly the honour that he was given. I know he is deeply concerned about what this means, no doubt, for his legacy, and I think his legacy should not be one of a censure motion that has been brought into the House today, which I think is partisan. I do believe that.

An honourable member interjecting—

I disagree. I'll take that interjection, but I disagree. The great thing about democracy is that we can all have different views, and we can all hold fast to them.

I want Scott Morrison's legacy to be the fact that he led this nation as best he could. He led this nation ably. He led this nation honestly. He led this nation extremely well, and he kept Australians alive and he kept their jobs in place and intact in the most extraordinary and difficult times that this nation has had since World War II. I regard him as a friend. I was proud to serve him as his Deputy Prime Minister. I don't know why you're shaking your head—you were not there; I was. I very much admire the way he led this nation during very, very dark days.

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