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

It's a pleasure to be back here, in this place, representing the great people of Macnamara, for the start of 2021. That means we're finally seeing the end of 2020, a year that firmly belongs in the bin. I am pleased to say that, today, Victoria, my home state—which other members on this side also are from—is very pleased to have 27 days in a row without any community transmission of this coronavirus pandemic. That is a huge relief and an indication that life in Victoria is as normal as it's going to get while this pandemic is on.

I want to take this opportunity to thank the thousands in the Victorian public health team who have worked tirelessly, over the summer, after that breakout from the northern Sydney beaches—where the cases did, inevitably, come down to Victoria—at a time when many families were hoping to have holidays. Our trackers, our tracers, our testers, our nurses, our doctors, our paramedics, everyone in the Victorian health team, were going above and beyond. In a remarkable achievement, despite there being an outbreak in Victoria, they got it under control within a week, which is truly a sensational achievement. I want to take this opportunity to send my sincere thanks—and the thanks of all members, I think it's safe to say.

Today we see that there have been two days in WA without a COVID case, which is certainly a relief from where we were, but it's safe to say that with this current outbreak—or the escape from hotel quarantine—in WA they are not out of the woods yet. We send our best to the people of WA and we send our best to all of those trying to bring that under control as quickly as possible.

I would point out that, unfortunately—as we felt, in Victoria, during the height of our pandemic—members of the government are keen to play politics with the pandemic and are keen to undermine the efforts of the health experts and of the contact tracers. I would have thought that they would have learnt their lesson, that politically it's not particularly popular to do that, as Queensland rightly re-endorsed the Labor government up there. It's disappointing to see the Minister for Home Affairs take a swipe at the WA authorities as they are trying to bring this pandemic under control.

You cannot play politics with a pandemic. Those opposite and those in the federal government need to start acting like a federal government and not like petty political hacks taking aim at health authorities. This pandemic is not going away. For now, we say thank you to our health workers and thank you to all those keeping us safe.