Julie Collins (Franklin, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing and Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. Tony Abbott says that older Australians with COVID should be left to die, 'while nature takes its course'. Why hasn't the Prime Minister already condemned this heartless remark by a former Liberal Prime Minister?

Hon. Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before the Prime Minister begins his answer—and I'm reluctant to interrupt him, but I can hear the level of interjections. There are a number of people who have been warned and I'll just warn them again. The Prime Minister has the call.

Scott Morrison (Cook, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think all members of this House have known the government's position when it comes to the need to take action to protect the lives of all Australians during the COVID-19 pandemic, and we have acted in accordance with that very strong view. While I have not read every statement of the former Prime Minister, I do not understand that that was the intent of the former Prime Minister's statement. I'm not aware of that, as I have not seen it. My focus has been—on a day when the member opposite may want me to be reading speeches—on the millions of Australians who have received the news today that, as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, Australia has entered into the worst recession that we have seen in this country since the Great Depression.

That has not enabled me to be reading a lot of the matters that the member has referred to. But what I do know is what we have done. I do know what we have done, and I do know that our government's policies and our actions during the COVID-19 pandemic have been to value every single life. Every single life matters when it comes to the COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on Australians right across this country. That is how we've acted and that is how we've responded. The Australian people know that that is the policy of our government.