Mark Dreyfus (Isaacs, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Attorney General) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

COVID has killed 685 residents of aged-care homes, including 17 in just one home in my electorate. Twelve months on, COVID still threatens aged-care residents, and we have a federal government failing to protect aged-care workers and the people they are caring for. We have another week of lockdown in Victoria, which might have been avoided if the vaccination rollout had been treated as urgent, which it undoubtedly is. How could this happen? Why have fewer than one-in-10 aged-care workers been vaccinated months after the government declared them the priority? Why are some aged-care residents only today being offered their first vaccination?

The Minister for Health claimed every aged-care home in Victoria had been vaccinated. But when I confronted him with the fact that one home in my community had received no vaccinations, he said that was not his responsibility. The longer we take to vaccinate, the more lives are at risk and the greater the chances of more distressing and costly lockdowns. The Prime Minister has failed every target he set. His version of a vaccination program is more about marketing slogans than about protecting Australians. It is urgent and it is a race. It's time to stop blaming others and focus on fixing the Morrison government's vaccination debacle for the sake of all Australians.