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

I have received a letter from the honourable member for McMahon proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government's inability to focus on the issues that matter during COVID-19.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start my remarks by speaking directly to the people of Victoria. Months ago the people of Victoria faced a fork in the road. In August Victoria experienced a daily peak of 725 COVID-19 cases. At the same time, the United Kingdom was experiencing 891 cases a day. This morning Victoria recorded one new case. Yesterday the United Kingdom recorded 19,000 cases.

This was not inevitable. Victoria could have gone down the United Kingdom's road. This result is a testament to the people of Victoria—all Victorians. It's a testament to the children who've missed out on birthday parties. It's a testament to the friends and families who haven't attended the funerals of loved ones. It's a testament to businesses that have kept their doors shut despite their love of their business. And, yes, it's a testament to the tough and difficult decisions taken by Premier Andrews and his government.

Our support on this side of the House goes to the people of Victoria and the Victorian government just as it went to the people and government of Tasmania as they dealt with the outbreak in the north-west of Tasmania, just as it went and goes to the people and government of New South Wales as they deal with the outbreaks in Sydney. COVID-19 is not a matter of jurisdiction and it should not be a matter of party politics. This virus won't be defeated anywhere until it's defeated everywhere, and we all have a stake in our shared success.

But, as Victorians have undertaken this massive effort, they've endured a federal government and cabinet ministers taking cheap shots at them and their government—a conga line of cabinet ministers champing at the bit to criticise Victoria and its government, pretending that they're epidemiologists when actually they're just politicians. The Morrison government has put marketing before medicine when it comes to the people of Victoria.

It wasn't meant to be this way. The government told us, when it suited them politically, that we were all in this together. Back in March, announcing the so-called national cabinet, the Prime Minister in thanking the states and territories thanked them for their strong sense of unity, cooperation and purpose. That was a long time ago. The Minister for Health, never short of hyperbole, said:

… people will look back on this National Cabinet as being one of the most amazing achievements of the Federation in Australia's first 200 years.

The Federation is only 120 years old. He already regards it as better than World War II and he's claiming the next 80 years as well!

The national cabinet did play a role, I acknowledge, because, when the Prime Minister was still saying he was going to go to the football, Premier Andrews and Premier Berejiklian dragged him to tougher lockdowns through the national cabinet, dragged him to the restrictions that were necessary to save the lives of Australians. The Prime Minister said in March:

… everybody's working together. There's no quibbling … We'll just get on and do it, because that's what we all owe it to you to keep you safe.

I actually agree with the Prime Minister then, not the Prime Minister now. I agree with what he said then. That is what they owe the Australian people, but it's not what they have delivered.

We have seen cabinet minister after cabinet minister line up to criticise Victoria and its response. Head of the queue, as is often the case, has been none other than the Treasurer. We all know the Treasurer loves a headline. We know the most dangerous place to be in Parliament House is between the Treasurer and a TV camera—don't find yourself there! He's always got advice to give to the states on how to do better and to business on how to do better, but now he's reached a new low. Just yesterday he accused the Premier of Victoria of 'bloody-mindedness', 'stubbornness' and 'making it up as he goes'. This is from a Treasurer who said as recently as August:

But I'm not serving Victorians or Australians by engaging in a slanging match.

Well, no, he's not. He would not be serving Australians and Victorians by engaging in a slanging match, but engaging in a slanging match is exactly what he's doing now.

Incidentally, I saw the handiwork of some of the Treasurer's infamous backgrounding and networking on the front page of The Australian today. Faithfully reporting, it said:

Political observers have noted he—

the Treasurer—

is a popular figure in his own state, winning 48,928 first-preference votes in his seat of Kooyong at the 2019 election while Mr Andrews received 19,649 votes in his state electorate.

I wonder who those political observers might be—maybe sources close to the Treasurer's office? But, knowing that state electorates and federal electorates are a different size, I did a quick exercise and found that Mr Frydenberg received 49.4 per cent of the primary vote but Mr Andrews received 56.7 per cent of his primary vote. If the Treasurer thinks that 49 per cent makes him more popular than 57 per cent, maybe we have an insight into how he lost $60 billion in his costings.

Close behind the Treasurer has been the acting minister for immigration. The acting minister for immigration has been arguing that the New South Wales and Victorian figures are similar and so, therefore, the restrictions should be similar—again, pretending to be an epidemiologist. On the face of it, yes, New South Wales and Victoria have had similar figures. In the last 14 days, Victoria has had 108 cases and New South Wales has had 105. But if the acting minister for immigration bothered to do some research he'd know that in New South Wales 55 of those cases have come from overseas and no cases in Victoria have come from overseas, for obvious reasons. They have all come from community transmission, which is a very different set of arrangements. So my advice to the acting minister for immigration is to do his job, get the travel bubble right and not blame other people. And maybe the acting minister for immigration might want to consider not engaging in conduct which can only be described as criminal. That might be my advice to the acting minister for immigration.

This is part of a pattern of behaviour by these ministers in this government. When they had the chance months ago, they stood at the dispatch box and demanded Premier Palaszczuk open her borders to Victoria and everywhere else. Imagine if she'd listened to them. Imagine the catastrophe in Queensland if she'd opened the borders when they said. She was right and they were wrong. I wonder if they'd have apologised if she'd actually listened to them. I wonder if they'd have apologised to her for that poor advice. Don't forget that this government, to their shame, intervened in a Federal Court case to back their preference buddy, their advertising buddy Clive Palmer, to undermine public health and undermine the government of Western Australia.

We all know this activity by cabinet ministers serves a purpose for this government. It's a distraction from their failures. They want Victoria to open up more quickly. We'd all like to see Victoria open up more quickly, no-one more so than our Victorian colleagues. Maybe Victoria could open up more quickly if we had a COVIDSafe app that worked, if the federal government's responsibility was met. We've had 27,000 cases in Australia. There would have been hundreds of thousands of contacts of those 27,000 cases. Do you know how many contacts have been traced by the COVIDSafe app without assistance from manual tracers? There have been 14—one four—cases traced by the COVIDSafe app. There was $70 million spent on development and marketing. That's a cost of $5 million per contact. I've seen better value from land deals at Badgerys Creek airport under this government than from the COVIDSafe app. It has been a disgrace.

We had the Ruby Princess. The Prime Minister told us that cruise ships would arrive under bespoke arrangements—'under the direct command of Border Force', he told us. Yet we've seen the disaster that was the Ruby Princess. Then, most tragically of all, we've seen the disaster in aged care, which is the direct constitutional responsibility of the federal government. There have been 683 deaths of elderly Australians under a minister, the Minister for Aged Care and Senior Australians, who, I regret to tell the House, is simply not up to the job. The president of the Australian Medical Association put it well when he said, 'COVID-19 took the world by surprise, but its effects on Australia's aged care system were entirely predictable.' That's right. They were predictable because aged care under this government is underfunded, undervalued and underinvested in, because the regulator has been asleep at the wheel on this government's watch. And it's all their responsibility.

We know these events—this commentary, this undermining of Victoria's response—have real consequences. There are plenty of conspiracy theories, plenty of people who say that we shouldn't have these restrictions and that we shouldn't have these lockdowns. There's plenty of undermining out there. We have to accept that and understand that, but not from the federal government, because Victorians, Western Australians and Queenslanders deserve better than that. When it comes to this government, when this Prime Minister has the choice between uniting and dividing he will divide every time. When he has the choice between substance and spin he will go for spin. He has put marketing ahead of medicine. He has played politics with the pandemic. This has had real consequences for Australians—not just Victorians but all Australians—and this Prime Minister is responsible for that. He's responsible for the conduct of his cabinet ministers. He's responsible for the conduct of his Treasurer and his acting minister for immigration and all the others. He's responsible, but he won't take responsibility. But that's what we've come to expect from Scott Morrison as Prime Minister.

Luke Howarth (Petrie, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Community Housing, Homelessness and Community Services) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for McMahon looks like a spoilt child. That's what he looks like when he comes in here and carries on with such rot. To people listening, Australians don't agree with him.

This year, 2020, has been a tough year, with COVID-19, this international pandemic, and for no-one more than year 12 students. I wish the best for all year 12 students, not just those in my own electorate of Petrie but those around Queensland and right around the country at the moment, who are studying for exams and are about to enter the workforce or go on and do further study. I wish them all the best. The Morrison government has been with them as well. I know that the Minister for Education in the Morrison government has ensured that the Education Council will ensure that every year 12 student who is finishing this year will get a leaving certificate, a completion ATAR guaranteed, this year. That's important because it's been a tough year for year 12s. I know: my oldest son is in year 12 this year. He's currently studying for exams.

The Morrison government is focused on delivering for all Australians the economic lifeline that they need at the moment, at this point in time, to get through this year of 2020, this unique year of global pandemic. We're building confidence and momentum in our economy for the future so that we can sustain a strong economy for all Australians in all electorates represented here in this place.

We are creating jobs—or businesses are creating jobs—to keep Australian families going and support workers who need that work to pay their mortgages and so forth. In the recent budget we've announced, in many different ways, support for Australians. The other day when I was driving down my street I stopped and spoke to a fellow who was painting, Mr Dayne Baker from Allscale Brushworx in Clontarf. He's currently got eight staff and he's actually been able to hire two additional apprentices just in the last few weeks because of what the Morrison government is doing in paying half of their wages. Dayne said, 'The government incentive was a big factor in hiring two new apprentices,' and, while growing his business, he saw this as an important opportunity to use this program to help local people back into employment at this difficult time. I want to thank Dayne and so many others like him around the country that are hiring apprentices.

Just last week, the Prime Minister and I were in Aspley with Luke Camilleri at Grand Prix Mazda. His father, Joe, started that company over 50 years ago. They've become a powerhouse. They have over 120 staff in Aspley alone. Once again, we were meeting apprentices there whose wages were being paid at the moment. Luke said that, during the height of the pandemic, JobKeeper was a big influence in helping keep their staff connected. The instant asset write-off has also been a phenomenal help for Grand Prix Mazda in Aspley. Kris at Cafe Diversity in Redcliffe was telling me that he was very thankful that they had been able to survive through COVID thanks to the Morrison government's JobKeeper program. They lost 80 per cent of their business overnight at the height of this pandemic and were in desperate need of support, which was given to them the Australian government. He said that, thanks to those payments, they have re-emerged and are now on the hunt for an apprentice chef and a manager for the cafe. So, if you're in my electorate and looking for work, get onto SEEK, because right now Cafe Diversity is hiring an apprentice and a manager. Make sure you have a look.

I know the member for Brisbane would agree that the tax cuts have been a great help to so many Australians. What a great time to hand back people's hard-earned money to them when they need a little bit of extra support. What it means is that a retailer worker in, say, Sydney, Melbourne or Perth will get $2,160 more back in their pocket this year compared to 2017-18. That's a big difference. It's an extra $1,080 in the hand. That was passed just a fortnight ago. That's a great incentive for young workers. A tradie earning $80,000 a year will get $2,160 back. A teacher earning $120,000 a year will benefit by getting $2,745 back in their pocket this year compared to 2017-18. We know those tax cuts encourage more people into the workforce, which brings more income tax for the federal government for us to invest in essential services.

Transport and road infrastructure have been increased big time right around the country. There are so many new roads being built. The only downside in my own electorate in Queensland is that the Palaszczuk government has been really slow to act here, and it's one the big disappointments that all Queensland members have to deal with. Right now, it's taking four years from the time a road is announced to when the first sod is turned. I think of Beams Road in my own electorate. The Palaszczuk government announced in 2017 that they'd upgrade it. It won't even start till next year. That's four years until a sod is turned. I ask Queenslanders to look at that when voting on 31 October and to consider the LNP alternative up there, with Deb Frecklington and her team, who have a plan to get Queensland going again. I know Amanda Cooper in Aspley has been fighting hard and has a great track record of representation, and so do Kerri-Anne Dooley in Redcliffe and Yvonne Barlow in Murrumba. So there's a lot happening.

I just want to talk a little bit about my own portfolio of homelessness and some of the things that we're doing there, too. One of the things I did recently, in a bipartisan way, with the Queensland state minister was write to every boarding house in Queensland. At the last census, throughout Australia, there were some 17,800 homeless people living in boarding houses. This joint letter from me and the state minister spoke about improving tenure for tenants—rather than giving them a week-by-week lease, ensure they have three months—and also ensuring that they have privacy outside of their own room. That's a way boarding house owners can act to help those tenants.

Home ownership has obviously been a big part of the Morrison government's plan, with an additional 10,000 places in the extension of the First Home Loan Deposit Scheme; the $25,000 tax-free grant for eligible owner-occupiers, including first home buyers, through HomeBuilder 2020, which has been going gangbusters as we heard the minister for housing say in question time.

For Indigenous Australians, the Morrison government is fulfilling its election commitment of finalising the agreement with the Queensland government to deliver better housing for Indigenous people. And Indigenous Business Australia will see an additional investment of $150 million over the next three years to deliver 360 home loans for new housing construction in regional Australia.

There is support for older and disabled Australians and their families through a targeted capital gains tax exemption for granny flat arrangements where there is a formal written agreement in place. Around 3.9 million pensioners and four million Australians with a disability will be eligible for this exemption.

For women, we have just announced the $60 million Safe Places program and the 40 successful projects around Australia. We did that in Adelaide two weeks ago.

For homeless people, there is free PBS subsidised medicines, including enabling scripts to be processed online by improving access to medicines.

For youth homelessness, there are social impact investments, including Youth at Risk programs. I want to take this opportunity to thank the state governments for their combined investment of $2 billion on new social housing.

There are also the City Deals. In the Perth City Deal, there is $30 million to extend the Perth Concert Hall, to upgrade the Perth Cultural Centre precinct and to fund homelessness projects in Perth's CBD.

In mining, in my own electorate, GlassTerra Pty Ltd have just been awarded a $420,000 grant under the Morrison government's Entrepreneurs Program. Christian Larsen, the CEO, told me that this will help create more jobs and it will help create more exports. It's an Australian startup, and Australian technology is to become a global market leader. It will help save lives as they improve safety on tailings dam walls. That's a very important opportunity there as well.

So the Morrison government is listening. We are out there providing for all Australians, ensuring that, during this difficult time, Australians get the help they need. We hear nothing but negativity from the opposition. We heard it from the member for McMahon and we'll hear it from the member for Newcastle or whoever is speaking next. We hear about everything that is bad about this country. At the moment, what we are focused on is the Australian people and delivering for them.

Peta Murphy (Dunkley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to start by acknowledging the hard work and sacrifice of all the people in my community of Dunkley over the year 2020, which has been so much more than a challenge. I acknowledge your solidarity and sense of community in pulling together to help those who are finding it more difficult than others to deal with the public health pandemic and the economic recession that we find ourselves in. You have all been magnificent, and I know that you will continue to be so as we work our way through this.

For a short time, it appeared that the Prime Minister and his government had heard the plaintive call of Australians for political leaders across jurisdictions, for people from all parties and political backgrounds, to work together in the public interest. It did. Granted, it took a global pandemic, and the Prime Minister couldn't find it in himself to include the federal opposition in this 'cooperative approach' no matter how many times we offered to be part of it.

The Prime Minister's words were that there is 'a strong sense of unity, cooperation and purpose'.' So Australians I think for a little while saw a glimmer of hope. They really did. They thought they had a Prime Minister, a Treasurer and a health minister who were holding out the promise of working cooperatively with anyone who wanted to deal with the imperative before them. As the Prime Minister said in March: 'Everyone's working together…no quibbling…that's what we owe to you.' That's what he said to Australians: 'That's what we owe to you.' Sadly, tragically in fact, it seems that that commitment had a use-by date, or maybe it was just all words after all. What we have seen in Victoria lately, what my community who are working so hard to put those words into practice have seen, is a litany of political attacks, and personal insults and attacks—from federal ministers, cabinet ministers—against the state government. As we are working hard to suppress the second wave and get through it, we've seen a federal government, notwithstanding that the Treasurer said in August that he wasn't, 'serving Australians or Victorians by engaging in a slanging match', doing just that. The Treasurer was right then when he said it and he's right now, that that is not serving Australians.

In the spirit of cooperation and purpose, of working together in the national interest for all Australians, I have a list of things that the Treasurer and the federal government should have been focusing on when they were instead playing political games. It's not too late to adopt any or all of these suggestions. I invite the government to do just that for the sake of my community in Dunkley and for the sake of all of Australia. In no particular order, just off the top of my head, here's a list. You could restore JobKeeper to Victorian childcare workers. You could support Victorian businesses and workers by keeping JobKeeper at its initial level, by extending it to those people who missed out and by helping us get through the second wave and come out of it. You can commit to keeping JobSeeker at decent levels after December and not return it to below the poverty line at $40 a day. You can provide targeted support to the travel industry for travel agents who, through no fault of their own, have lost all of their business for now and the foreseeable future and were left out of the federal budget. You could provide support for workers over 35 who've lost their jobs and can't see where their next job will come from. You could make sure that this federal government lets Victorians leave the country to say goodbye to dying relatives in other countries. You could help Australians and Victorians to come home when, through no fault of their own, they've found themselves in another country—no job, no family, no support and they can't come home. You could find a credible woman, because I can guarantee you there are lots of us around, to explain why the budget not only is not gender neutral but abandons women and female dominated industries to look after themselves through the biggest economic and health crisis in more than a century. You could invest in affordable child care as an economic and a social imperative. You could have a real climate change policy, an energy policy that you stick too for more than 22 seconds and make sure that Australia is a renewable energy super power. I've got so many things and I'm not going to get to say them all in this short time. You could ask the arts minister to actually come up with an arts and cultural policy and support the $111 billion industry that's been decimated. You could actually invest in the public service to have capacity to plan for disasters and the future. The list goes on. I can tell you if you come and talk to me. (Time expired)

Kevin Hogan (Page, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With the MPI for today, the government's inability to focus on issues that matter during COVID-19, I was always going to be very interested to see what attack the opposition were going to bring on that today, because by any international standard Australians, both on a medical front and on an economic front, are doing relatively well to international comparison.

It got really weird for me when the member for McMahon not only came in a criticised that but then lauded and celebrated the effort of Dan Andrews in Victoria. Work that out. If you went out and walked down any main street of any town or city in this country and you asked, 'How do you think Australia is going with the COVID pandemic both medically and economically? they'd say, 'Not too bad'. If you said, 'What about Victoria?' They'd say, 'Victoria's the blight on it actually.' Victoria mismanaged it. Dan Andrews has mismanaged the situation. News flash to those opposite: Victoria have not done well with the pandemic on any comparison. If you look at the contagion rates of the virus in Victoria—and, very sadly, if you look at the fatality rates in Victoria—relative to anywhere else in this country, Victoria has done badly.

Ms Claydon interjecting—

Member for Newcastle, go grab the newspaper or go google it and see how Victoria has done relative to the rest of the country. Obviously, you're going to be surprised that you should not be in here saying, 'What a great job Dan Andrews has done!' There's an inquiry going on into the quarantine system, and the inquiry will find that the Labor government of Victoria mismanaged it. So, newsflash to those opposite, to the member for McMahon, to the member for Newcastle: Victoria is not something of which you should be saying, 'Well done,' because it has been the blight on the whole statistics for Australia, both pandemically and economically.

And I feel for Victorians. The rest of us across Australia have looked at the situation down there and at all the restrictions that were placed on them. The damage done to people's mental health and livelihoods—not to mention to the health of those who've contracted the virus—has been catastrophic.

So, you may also be surprised—given that you're not aware of the situation in Victoria—that, compared to just about every country throughout the world, Australia has done very well, and, if it wasn't for Victoria, we'd have done even better. If you look at our infection rates and our fatality rates—albeit each of them is a tragedy—ours are very low, compared to other countries around the world. Why? Because we got on top of it early. We declared this a pandemic well before the World Health Organization said we should. We had international restrictions so that, very early on, people were stopped from coming from other countries around the world.

In my state, New South Wales, the state government implemented wonderful contact tracing systems and social distancing and hand hygiene standards as well. I want to acknowledge everyone there—and Victorians as well. I think every Australian has realised the importance of social distancing and hand hygiene and has got behind them, which is why we have done so very well—again, as I say, except for Victoria's mismanagement of this virus. Again, there's an inquiry going on into that, about quarantining and everything else, and it will come up with exactly what the reason is for how they stuffed that up.

But anyway, it's great that every other state and the federal government got on top of this, and the statistics for us are very good. But, again, to laud the Victorian government is crazy. So, again, newsflash: federally, we've done very well; the state Labor government in Victoria has done very badly.

Obviously, there's been an economic thing brought on by this as well, Deputy Speaker O'Brien. I say this to you respectfully, because I probably don't really want you to imagine this, but imagine if, federally, Labor was in government as well! I mean, seriously! Member for Brisbane, where would we be at, economically? And would the federal Labor government have done as badly as the state Labor government with the pandemic management and also economically?

Economically, though we are facing great challenges, I want to quote to you from an S&P media release, from today, I think, saying the Morrison government's balance sheet was strong before the pandemic. You know why it was strong before the pandemic? Because Australia's budget had improved in recent years. So, economically, we're managing this too. (Time expired)

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] Well, I'll tell you what we wouldn't have done: if federal Labor were in government, we wouldn't have supported Clive Palmer in the courts in WA to make Mark McGowan open up the borders! That's what we wouldn't have done, Member for Page. If you want to know what it looks like to see the federal government abandon Victorians, listen to the drivel that came out of the previous member.

I start my contribution by, unlike the previous speaker, actually saying thank you to Victorians. Victorians have spent some of the most difficult days of our state at home. We've worn masks. We've stayed away from friends and family. Our local businesses have made huge sacrifices. And it has saved lives.

In August, we had 725 cases in Victoria, and today we had one—one! The daily case numbers often shape the mood of our great city, and on days of high numbers we have been flat. But today the mood is one of pride. Across the world, lockdowns are being imposed as the virus continues to gain momentum. Case numbers are exploding in the UK, in India, in Israel, in France, in Spain, and, devastatingly so, in the United States. Yet, we have managed to get to the point where we are in Victoria because of the sacrifices and the collective approach made by Victorians. We have lost a lot of lives—far too many—but nowhere near as many as we would have had we not stayed the course, nowhere near as many as we would have had we just done what other countries did and let the virus rip, and nowhere near as many as we would have had we had just listened to the federal government.

When the pandemic first hit our shores, Australian people looked for unity. The Prime Minister fronted the nation and promised unity in the national cabinet, and people were relieved. I was relieved. It meant that we were going to pause partisanship for the sake of our national interest. But, as of today, something significant has changed since April. Today we have a federal government more interested in playing politics than they are in providing the supportive leadership we desperately need during this pandemic. In a time where we need giants, our Prime Minister presents as a small-minded, hyperpartisan combatant more interested in commenting from the sidelines than actually taking political risks and sharing responsibility. He demands that the states follow his orders: throw your borders open and don't listen to your health experts. But, if anything goes wrong—warning!—this Prime Minister will throw the states under the bus, especially if they elected a Labor premier.

Our federally regulated and funded aged-care facility system was woefully unprepared for an outbreak, with no plan to deal with one. That couldn't be the federal government's responsibility or fault. No, that's Victoria's fault, apparently. There's the inability of Australians to return home. Well, surely, that's got to be the state's fault, because even quarantine, a federal responsibility in the Constitution, has been palmed off to the states by this Prime Minister. Then there is contact tracing, a difficult job made even more difficult by the fact that the Prime Minister's faulty app didn't work in the state where we desperately needed it to.

The Prime Minister hasn't been there to support Victorians in our time need. In fact, the Prime Minister cut support to Victorians in our time of need. He cut support to JobKeeper. He cut support to JobSeeker. The Prime Minister chose the leave so many off JobKeeper support in the first place—artists, casual workers, those in the university sector and in local government. And, all the while he's cutting support, he sends out his lackeys to go and attack Labor premiers. He sends out his lackey, the Minister for Home Affairs, to attack the Queensland Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk. He sends his lackeys, the Treasurer and the health minister, to go and fight and undermine Daniel Andrews. And he sends his lackey, Clive Palmer, to go and undermine Mark McGowan and to fight him in the courts in WA. This Prime Minister is happy to expend lots of energy fighting the Labor Party but not much energy bringing the member for Hughes into line for his dangerous contradictions of the chief medical officers in his own government during a health pandemic.

We have endured so much in Victoria. We have achieved something remarkable. I'm looking forward to being back in Canberra, but I will know that we have gotten through this without the hyperpartisan nonsense from the man who calls himself our Prime Minister.

Celia Hammond (Curtin, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I want to start with acknowledging the people from my community of Curtin for the way they have responded to the pandemic. Right from the very first days of the pandemic, we came together in a volunteer network to assist others. I also thank them for their honesty and candour in approaching me about the many and varied issues that people were facing, whether it be waiting times in the early days with Services Australia or whether it be access to other services, they were all very open and brought their issues to light.

In addressing this particular MPI topic today, the starting point is: what is the role of government? The role of government is, ultimately: to ensure the safety and security of the nation and its peoples; to preserve and protect their health and wellbeing; to create the settings for people to have the opportunity to fulfil their potential and to live their best lives; and to ensure that those who can't provide for themselves are supported to live in dignity. So if we ask what issues matter during COVID-19—because it's times like these when we really do expect governments to step up—what have people been concerned about this year?

People have been concerned about their health and the health of their loved ones, people have been concerned about their financial security now and in the future, people have been concerned about the financial security and stability of the country both now and in the future—and this government has been responding to each of those in turn.

I had a very unusual experience right back at the beginning of the pandemic, when everything was shut down in Western Australia. I hopped into a COVID-appropriate queue, waiting to get a coffee. As I was in that queue, a man came up to me and shirtfronted me. This was way back in March. He started pointing at me, saying, 'Your government is doing the exact wrong thing. You are going to have suicides on your hands. You're going to be responsible for people killing themselves. You're going to be responsible for people losing their jobs.' He went on and on for a couple of minutes, until a couple of people within the cafe came to rescue me. I reflected at the time on his point and I thought, 'No, we are doing the right thing. We don't know enough about this virus. We need to take all steps.' We know a lot more about the virus, but we still need to take steps. My point there is that the issues that he was raising about the mental health impact of this virus have to be taken into account, and they are being taken into account by this government in the steps it's taking to address that.

I have to commend both the Treasurer and the Prime Minister, and the health minister, for always being aware that, in addressing this COVID-19 pandemic, we've got to look at it on multiple fronts and we've got to look at it both in the here and now and in the future. We have to look at the economics of it right here and now—supporting people, encouraging job growth, encouraging businesses to spend money, helping people who have lost their jobs—but we also have to think about the future economy. We need to make sure that we actually have a viable economy for our younger people, for my children—and their children, for heaven's sake, if they ever have any—to grow up in. So we need to be taking actions and making decisions for the here and now and for the future. Likewise, yes, we have to do that in health, and we've invested enormously in addressing the health concerns here and now. The number of listings on the MBS has been increased exponentially. The amount of money put into telehealth and various other services has all been for the here and now. But we are also investing in health for the longer term—in health research and, importantly, in mental health initiatives.

I know that previous speakers in this debate have taken the time to criticise and judge comments made by the Treasurer and actions taken by the Prime Minister. Earlier, when the Treasurer and I were talking about the mental health impacts of coronavirus, he shared with me a text message that he received yesterday, and it says this: 'Well said today, Josh—total "bloody-mindedness". No other way of putting it. We have friends whose kids are self-harming, and one friend's husband committed suicide last week due to losing his job. This is what is happening to us as a community. Please keep fighting for every Victorian.'

There is no manual for addressing a pandemic. As I said, our government has been doing what it was required to do: balance competing factors and think about both the here and now and the long term for everybody. That's what governments as stewards of the country must do for the people.

Kate Thwaites (Jagajaga, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] It needs to be acknowledged in this place how difficult this time has been for those of us here in Melbourne. People have lost their jobs, businesses are struggling and we are collectively feeling the strain of our long lockdown. It's been said by others, but it really is true: you can't understand what this has been like if you haven't lived it. But we have collectively smashed the second wave, and that is down to the work of our community. Individually and collectively, Melburnians have obeyed the rules. They haven't agreed with all of them, and many in my community have told me when they disagreed, and I understand and I respect their views. But, because of their efforts, we are facing a much brighter next few months.

At the peak of this second wave, in August, Victoria reported 725 daily COVID cases. Today, I am so relieved to say, we reported just one new case—just one! That is a massive turnaround. The comparison has to be made: at the same time as daily cases in Victoria peaked at 725, the UK recorded similar numbers, at 891. As I just said, today in Victoria we have one new case. Yesterday in the UK they recorded almost 19,000, and they, and many other countries in Europe, are now facing renewed restrictions.

Victorians have managed this incredible improvement through their individual and communal efforts and despite the politicking from the Morrison government. Victorians have been led by a state government that has made the difficult decisions. That doesn't mean there haven't been mistakes; of course there have been. But leadership in a time of crisis means taking responsibility. It means stepping up and, where necessary, taking the hard decisions. Clearly, the Prime Minister and his Victorian cabinet ministers think it means something else entirely. If you are a Victorian, all you've seen from this Prime Minister and his cabinet is government by press release, by announcement with no follow-through, by sniping drops provided to friendly media outlets. The man elected to lead our country thinks that is the best he can do for us in a time of crisis. Well, how incredibly disappointing—although what else can we expect from a man who 'doesn't hold a hose, mate'?

So perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that the Prime Minister and his government have reduced the rate of JobKeeper and JobSeeker despite the strong need in our community here. Even before they reduced the rate, they'd left out too many people—like the New Zealand-born chef at one of my local RSLs, who's now worried about how he supports his family, or people who worked at our local university, La Trobe, where the government deliberately designed the JobKeeper scheme to exclude them.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that when childcare centres had to shut in Victoria this government thought it was appropriate to cut the early educators in those centres off JobKeeper entirely. I can't tell you how many distraught workers—and in fact centre operators, who knew they weren't able to do the right thing by their employees—I talked to about that decision. Did I get any movement from this government? No. I wrote to the minister and he told me, 'It's all fine.' It's not fine. It hasn't been fine. People were looking to you to step up, and instead you stepped back.

Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that this government left Australians stranded overseas in increasingly precarious positions without a comprehensive plan or a time line for getting them home. And this from the man who built his career on managing our borders! Suddenly he's no longer responsible for them and for how people come in through them.

Then, of course, there is aged care, the government's biggest failure of all. I've talked about responsibility in a crisis. Nowhere has the failure to take responsibility been more evident than in aged care. We just heard from the member for Curtin how the role of government is to preserve wellbeing, to help people live in dignity. Well, I entirely agree. Where have you been, member for Curtin, during this aged-care crisis? Certainly we haven't seen the minister. We haven't seen the Prime Minister step up and take responsibility. I cannot tell you how distressing this has been in my community, how many families I've heard say they're scared about what's happening to their loved one in an aged-care facility. They haven't been able to get answers out of this government. I haven't been able to get answers on their behalf. There has been an abject failure of responsibility, an abject failure to focus on the things that matter during a time of crisis.

Trent Zimmerman (North Sydney, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This pandemic is a crisis that's affected every part of our country and, in some way, every person in our country. It is one of those events, like the Spanish flu, the Great Depression or the two world wars, that this generation of Australians will remember with dread for the rest of their lives. Today I particularly think about those incredible year 12 students who, with such great fortitude, have gone through one of the most difficult years of schooling and who started, in my state, their HSC today. I know that these are events they'll live with not just this year but for several years to come, events they'll talk about for the rest of their lives.

It is a credit to all Australians, including in my own community, that as a nation, despite the impacts that so many in our community have faced, we have done better than most other countries in the world. We've done better because governments have come together, communities have come together, our health workers have come together and our researchers have come together. In fact, all Australians have united behind the common cause of trying to defeat the effects of this pandemic.

It is therefore extraordinary that the opposition come into this parliament today and question the priorities of the federal government during the last six months. I wonder which one of those priorities they think we've got wrong. Has it been the support we've provided to our health system, which has been so vital to protecting lives? Is it the priority we gave to cushioning the economic blow of this pandemic, which we have done through all of the actions that we have taken, as a government, over the last six months? Or is it the priority we are giving to rebuilding and recovering, providing hope for those people who've lost their jobs? Are they the priorities those opposite are questioning today? Those three priorities, more than anything else, have been squarely at the heart of everything the federal team, led by our Prime Minister, who's worked day and night to help Australians, has been doing over the last six months.

You can only ask why the opposition would raise an MPI like this. But it's not a surprise, really. One of the great lies of the last six months that we've seen emanate from the other side is that the opposition wanted to be a constructive part of the team which has been trying to protect Australia from the pandemic. Whilst they talk about being constructive, we know that every single action the opposition have taken over the last six months has been nothing short of carping criticism, which has not helped but in fact harmed and, in many cases, instilled fear in Australians. For that, we can only wonder why.

I suspect that, in some ways, it's because the Leader of the Opposition is still in a fit of pique because he wasn't part of the national cabinet, which brought together heads of government. Funnily enough, you actually have to be a head of government to be part of a national cabinet of heads of government. That fact doesn't seem to have struck him. But it is interesting to think about what the Leader of the Opposition's contribution would have been if he'd been a member of the national cabinet. We've had some indication of what that might have been like, because we saw some of his priorities in the early days. I remember so vividly the great brainwave we had from the Leader of the Opposition in June, no doubt determined to achieve immortality. He said that a priority for the Australian government, in the middle of a national pandemic and economic crisis, should be—wait for it—the creation of a national drivers licence. No doubt he was hoping that, like the go card, the myki, the Opal or the SmartRider, this would be a national drivers licence that had a name. No doubt he was hoping it would be called 'the Albo' so that, for ever and a day, every Australian, when they weren't worried about having Labor's hands in their pockets and in their wallets, would know that there'd be an Albo in their wallets and purses. That's the type of contribution that we have seen over the last six months.

I want to touch on what our priorities actually have been. We've been protecting the health of Australians, putting $16 billion into research and making sure we have options for a vaccine. There's the work we've done to secure PPE supplies for our health workers, the agreements with the states to make sure that our hospital systems could hope, and the advice of the experts, which has been guiding us through this. These have all been hallmarks of our successful management of the pandemic.

In addition to the health crisis, we've obviously been addressing the economic crisis. We've done that in every action that this federal government has taken. There are 3½ million workers that have survived this because of JobKeeper. There's the support to businesses and there's the budget, handed down at the beginning of the month, which is all about the rebuilding process. These are the priorities of this government. They're priorities that are respected and admired by the Australian population, and for good reason. (Time expired)

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Listening to government members today, you would be led to believe that nothing has gone wrong, everything is perfect and we live in a unique place in the world. Well, the facts, when it comes to being prepared for COVID-19, need to be put to this parliament. It has not only cost Australians more money than they've obtained; it's wasted their time. We've seen a lack of resources available and we've seen cuts to JobKeeper and JobSeeker when we can least afford changes to the unemployment benefit. Coronavirus has been a time for leaders to come forward, bring good policy, support our community and protect our economy. Instead, just the week before last, we saw a budget that leaves thousands of Australians behind and heading into poverty.

Australia was badly unprepared for a pandemic. In its seven years in office, this government hadn't run a single pandemic preparedness drill. It had run our national medical stockpile down to dangerous levels, with less than one mask for every Australian and with no gloves, gowns or goggles in some cases. We then saw 28 deaths linked to the Ruby Princess, when the Commonwealth is responsible for our borders and the Prime Minister had promised 'bespoke arrangements for cruise ships'. As of yesterday we have seen 683 deaths in residential aged care, a sector the Commonwealth funds and regulates.

I want to highlight and compare this to my home state, where we've seen outstanding leadership when dealing with the COVID crisis by our Premier, Annastacia Palaszczuk. In Queensland there have been zero cases today and there are four active cases, 1164 cases in total and 1.1 million tested. Quite frankly, Queensland has led the way in this country. Yet somehow, in the middle of this chaos, when the states of Victoria and New South Wales were still getting on top of this virus, we had this LNP federal government hand in glove with the LNP state opposition leader in Queensland, Deb Frecklington. She, aided and abetted by her federal colleagues, called for our borders to be open 64 times when we could least afford that and it would have had a catastrophic effect in Queensland. We saw member after member here and Senator after Senator in the other place, demanding that our borders open. The Prime Minister called for the Queensland borders to be opened numerous times along with the Minister for Home Affairs, himself a COVID spreader in my home state. He said that the Queensland Premier had 'no consistency, no compassion and no common sense'. He called her 'pig-headed'.

I can tell you that in my home state the Premier is regarded as an outstanding leader, someone who has saved Queensland through strong action on health defence. All the state Queensland LNP members put up all the quotes on opening the borders and then they quietly took them off their Facebook pages. We know what's happened. We're not going to talk about borders anymore. No-one's talking about opening the borders. They've all gone quiet. They've all gone back to their electorates and heard the message loud and clear. The member for Fisher and the member for Fairfax were in this place, jumping to their feet, demanding that the borders be opened. Now there is silence because they realise what an outstanding job our Premier has done.

In 11 days the people of Queensland will decide between a strong leader who has a plan and the LNP opposition leader, who is frankly a risk to our borders and a risk to our economy. We know it is in the LNP DNA to cut, sack and sell. They do that at a Commonwealth level and they have a proud record of doing that in our home state. The last time the LNP were in government in Queensland, we saw 4,400 health staff and Queensland sacked. We saw maternity services cut and we saw midwives sacked. We know that, in the five years since the Palaszczuk government was elected, we've seen the hiring of 7,358 more nurses, 2,450 more doctors, 2,031 more health practitioners and 812 more paramedics. So we know that, when there is a pandemic, Queensland is well equipped, fit for the purpose of dealing with a health crisis, and now the Queensland government is rebuilding. If only this federal government would take a leaf out of the Queensland government's book. If only this government would actually look at what strong leadership is all about: not cutting, not sacking and not selling our essential services.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Oxley, before you retreat: you made a comment there regarding the home affairs minister that I'm deeming to be unparliamentary, and I will get you to withdraw it.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What was that?

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The 'COVID spreader'. In the context of this pandemic, I think that's unparliamentary.

Milton Dick (Oxley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Sure. I will withdraw and say that he suffered from COVID.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Dave Sharma (Wentworth, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I welcome this opportunity to talk about the issues that matter during COVID-19 and I welcome this matter of public importance. I've been a little surprised by the interventions of those opposite, who have seemed to want to talk about a lot of issues that don't matter such as the relative performance of the Queensland Labor government and whether the Daniel Andrews government should or should not be subject to legitimate scrutiny and criticism for their own failures during the second wave of the COVID-19 pandemic. But I was reminded of the words of the Leader of the Opposition last week in his budget reply speech. He said:

Amid all the chaos and hardship that has shaken our world in 2020—there is nowhere else you'd rather be.

I think those are very true words. Amid all the chaos and hardship that has shaken our world in 2020, there is nowhere else other than Australia where you'd rather be.

The first and foremost duty of any Australian government is to keep its citizens safe and protect them from harm. Undoubtedly the biggest threat to Australia this year, the biggest threat to the world this year, has been the COVID-19 pandemic. It has threatened the lives and the livelihoods of people all around the world. In terms of its impact on health, there have been upwards of 30 million cases worldwide, with upwards of one million lives lost, and no-one has been immune from it. We've seen world leaders, from the President of Brazil to the Prime Minister of Britain and the President of the US, struck with COVID-19. In this year alone COVID-19 has killed more people than malaria has, more people than HIV/AIDS has and more people than suicide has, so anyone who downplays the lethality and seriousness of this disease is not only wrong but dangerous. They are encouraging complacency where none is warranted.

The economic shock of COVID-19 has been equally profound. It has been the biggest economic shock to the globe since the Second World War. The IMF expects the global economy to contract by 4.5 per cent through this year. That is compared to a contraction of 0.1 per cent during the GFC, so we're talking about a shock that is 45 times bigger than the global financial crisis. The IMF expects economies to contract: the US by around four to five per cent, Japan by five per cent, the European Union by about eight per cent, UK by 10 per cent and New Zealand by 13 per cent. In fact, the only major economy that is likely to grow through 2020 is China's.

Australia has not escaped unscathed. We've had 905 deaths here—every one of them a tragedy in their own sense. We've had 27,400 cases. Our economy contracted by seven per cent in the second quarter. Many jobs have been lost. Many businesses have suffered or been forced to close. And there has been a lot of mental hardship caused by the social isolation and dislocation it has ensured. But the damage done to Australia has been much less than other parts of the world because of the laser-like focus that we have brought on the issues that matter during this complicated and unprecedented pandemic: protecting the health of Australians, cushioning the blow to the economy and preparing our economy for recovery.

We have protected the health of Australians. The death rate in Australia is around 33 per million. In France it's 14 times that. In the United States it's 17 times that. In the United Kingdom it's 18 times that. In Spain it's 19 times that. Our early border restrictions helped us stop the entry of the virus. Our testing regime, having done over 7.7 million tests, is one of the best in the world. We invested heavily and early in things like ICU capacity, ventilators, personal protective equipment, telehealth testing and contact tracing regimes. In total we've had a health response of more than $16.5 billion. Here, in particular, we should pay tribute to all those health workers and frontline workers in critical services, who've been so integral to the effectiveness of this response in Australia. As the Medical Journal of Australia published on research just a few weeks ago, more than 16,000 people would have died in Australia if our outbreak was as widespread as that in the UK—more than 16,000 people.

We have also cushioned the economic blow of this virus. Over 1.3 million people who lost their jobs or had their hours reduced during the crisis, over half are now back at work. Programs such as JobKeeper have helped over 3½ million Australians, whilst other measures such as JobSeeker, early access to superannuation, coronavirus supplements and pension supplements have helped households. Treasury estimates that unemployment would have reached 12 per cent without government intervention. Instead, it is now expected to peak at eight per cent in the December quarter. There is a long way to go, but we have been able to do all this because we had repaired the budget and could proceed from a position of fiscal strength.

We're also building the economic future. The budget contained the important $1.9 billion investment package in future technologies around clean energy and the $1.3 billion Modern Manufacturing Initiative. The government has focused relentlessly on the issues that matter during this pandemic, and that has shown in the results.