Matt Thistlethwaite (Kingsford Smith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for the Republic) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

To the people of Kingsford Smith, I want to say thank you. Thank you for your sacrifices, your compliance and your hard work during the past 3½ months in getting us through this most damaging delta outbreak of COVID. I give a special thanks to the parents who have been undertaking home schooling of their kids for the past 3½ months and doing it tough and to all of our essential workers who have kept our economy running during this difficult time. Thanks, too, to our aged-care and healthcare workers and those running our vaccination clinics and our testing sites. We must not forget that we expect a spike in cases now that we're opening up and that our healthcare system is going to be under enormous pressure. We need to make sure we support our already tired and overworked healthcare workers. I'm proud of the campaign that the Labor Party has run to get local vaccination clinics up in our community. In the Bayside local government area, the second dose vaccination rate is now at 73 per cent. Unfortunately, in the Randwick LGA, it's still only at 68 per cent, so there is more work to do in our community. I say to those who are eligible to get the jab: it's not too late to protect yourself and the people you love. Please consider getting your first or second dose of the COVID-19 vaccine as quickly as possible. You don't need to book and it's free.

In New South Wales, 535 lives have already been lost. One of those, I want to pay tribute to is Paul Nicolaou, a friend of mine who was my local drycleaner at Matraville. Paul, to your family, we say commiserations. There are currently 586 cases in hospital, with 125 of those in intensive care. We should not forget that we should never have been in this situation. The Prime Minister had two jobs this year: a speedy and effective rollout of the vaccine and quarantine. He failed at both. It was uncovered that the health minister knocked back a meeting in June 2020 with Pfizer. That saw us six months behind on our vaccine rollout. And, a year after telling Australians that they were working on developing domestic mRNA vaccine manufacturing capabilities, the Morrison government is no closer to producing mRNA vaccines. They can't even provide a realistic timetable for delivery. Yet, by this government's own admission, hundreds of thousands of immuno-compromised Australians need additional protection from COVID. They're being let down by a government far more interested in announcements than deliveries.

Many in our community are swept up by the euphoria associated with opening up, but I want to remind people that many are still doing it tough. Many have lost their jobs. Many businesses are still struggling. Particularly I want to mention the travel industry, both domestic and international, which has faced some of the harshest conditions throughout the last 18 months. Many of those businesses have been unable to trade due to government regulation and have had to lay off staff. But the Morrison-Joyce government has focused on announcement over delivery and continues to puts the jobs of thousands in the Australian travel sector at risk. There are going to be businesses which, because of public health orders, will be unable to trade even as we pass the 80 per cent vaccination level. A classic example is travel agents. Because of the restrictions around travel, travel agents can't resume their normal trade, so they won't be able to employ people in normal circumstances, yet they're going to lose their Commonwealth government support. It's not good enough. The economic pain won't disappear overnight, and the decision of the Morrison government to end support will make it worse. Until international travel normalises in 2022, an ongoing financial lifeline is now critical to the 30,000 Australians working in travel and 3,000 travel agencies and businesses who employ them. Australia's travel agents and businesses need ongoing support, including round 3 funds from the COVID-19 Consumer Travel Support Program. The government must release those round 3 funds.

The New South Wales government has said that it will continue to pay its share of disaster support and recovery payments until the end of November, albeit at a tapered rate, but the Morrison government has completely cut off its share now that the state has passed the 80 per cent vaccination rate. New South Wales recognises that what the Commonwealth is doing is not good enough, and that those businesses and employees are going to need that support right up until the moment they can resume normal trading. It's not good enough for the Morrison government to abandon those in the travel sector. The government must restore support to get those businesses through this difficult period of COVID.