Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question's to the Prime Minister. When a Melbourne pub offered free beers for vaccinations, the Prime Minister said to the pub: 'Good on you for getting behind the national effort. Cheers!' Given that it's okay for a pub to offer incentives for vaccination, why not a government?

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

Mr Speaker: $6 billion of taxpayers money—$6 billion—almost half of which would be paid to people who've already had the vaccine, which the Leader of the Opposition has largely already conceded. We've seen ice-creams last longer in the sunshine than this policy! He already acknowledges, by implication, that more than 75 per cent of people who would go and get this vaccine would have gone and got it otherwise. But he's going to cut a cheque anyway, just like they did last time. What we've seen from the Leader of the Labor Party here is very interesting—

Opposition Member:

An opposition member interjecting—

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

I'll take the interjection, because he refers to $13 billion. That was JobKeeper's monthly bill. I know what it was, because we decided to put JobKeeper in place, and we believe it was a wise investment to ensure that, on the other side of when we came out of the first and second waves, our economy came back and a million people got back into jobs. As we got to the end of March, those opposite were warning; they were hoping for the worst for Australians, when we came to the end of March, that people would not find themselves in jobs and Labor could go cock-a-hoop here in this place. But what did they find? Australians back in jobs. Australians around the country were smiling and the Labor Party was frowning. That's because all through this pandemic the Labor Party has hoped for the worst. They've undermined the national effort. There is the constant negativity of the Leader of the Labor Party. He can yap and yap and yap all he likes.

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

I'll just say to the Prime Minister: he's now moved beyond the question, which was about incentives. He's moved well beyond it—out of the arena and out of the carpark, all at once.

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

Going to the policy incentive put forward by the Leader of the Labor Party which was referred to by the questioner, what we've seen from this is how they would have done things if they were in government—the same sort of ill-disciplined, ill-informed way to approach policy, where they treat taxpayers' money like it's confetti, spraying it around without any rules, paying off money as a bribe to Australians. That's what it is. They think that they need to bribe Australians to get vaccinated—so little do they think of their fellow Australians and the sacrifices they're making. This Leader of the Labor Party has shown his true policy colours—ill-informed, ill-disciplined, unable to make the important decisions— (Time expired)