Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Western Australia) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Some 500 Australians have died from COVID-19 since parliament last met, in August. Christmas will not be the same for those 500 families. I pass on my condolences to each of them. Sadly, the government fail to see that the words they choose in the way they approach this crisis are a life and death policy challenge. They underestimated the seriousness of this challenge when they backed Clive Palmer in the High Court. They belittled 2.7 million Western Australians when they called WA a hermit kingdom. The Prime Minister went further when he compared Western Australians to cave people. And it's embarrassing to see the 'Prime Minister for New South Wales' try to explain his policies using cartoon analogies, such as to The Croods.

But then along came the Deputy Prime Minister. He launched an intracontinental ballistic missile at the people of Western Australia, comparing Western Australia to North Korea. He said:

… you are going to really turn yourself into a hermit kingdom. Like, we'll have North Korea and kind of another hermit kingdom on the west coast of Australia.

This is the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia attacking 2.7 million Western Australians who simply want to live without COVID and without interference from this government. We deserve so much better from the Deputy Prime Minister, and it's embarrassing that not one Liberal— (Time expired)