Andrew Wallace (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Bruce proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government's failure to focus and deliver on the needs of Australians.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

We came to this week—the dying days of this parliament—after a summer of utter chaos engulfing the government and the nation. Christmases were ruined, holidays disrupted, families separated and isolated. There was the testing crisis, where sick Australians queued for hours or days and trudged from chemist to chemist, desperate to get a test to protect themselves, their family and their incomes. The crisis in aged care accelerated. There were outbreaks across the nation. The testing infrastructure and the workforce collapsed. The supermarket shelves were empty—you couldn't get chicken in Coles. Businesses were closed, supply chains collapsed, and the shadow lockdown took hold across most of the country, though not in Western Australia, which I think the Deputy Prime Minister described as North Korea. Summer was okay over there.

It didn't have to be like that. It shouldn't have been like that. If only the Prime Minister had done his job, if he'd focused on Australians, planned, prepared and delivered. But instead, while chaos raged, the government has been consumed, day by day, with fighting, focusing on themselves, not the nation. The karma bus, or truth, has finally caught up with the Prime Minister in the last few weeks: the astounding revelations of secret texts that reveal what those closest to the Prime Minister really think of him. His good friend Gladys Berejiklian described him as 'a horrible, horrible person', more concerned with politics than people. With friends like that, who needs enemies? If he has friends like that, I'd hate to meet his enemies. A cabinet minister, who still hasn't outed themselves over there, wanted the world to know they consider the Prime Minister, the leader of their government, a 'complete psycho'. The next one I admit is tricky. I have to choose my words carefully under the standing orders, as the Speaker just reminded us in question time. You can't call the Prime Minister, or any other member in here, a liar or a fraud. 'Fake' is okay. It's funny, isn't it—on the front of every newspaper, on every radio station, on every television channel, it's blaring, but I can't quote precisely what the Deputy Prime Minister actually thinks about the Prime Minister. A little hint: it sounds like 'friar', 'the old town crier', 'Dunlop tyre'. Malcolm Turnbull said the Prime Minister had a reputation for 'crying'. The French President—'I don't think; I know' what he meant. I'm not even going to try and go near what Michael Keenan said about the Prime Minister in Niki Savva's book. Look that up for yourself. I do recommend it. The truth is that any Australian could have written these texts. Every Australian knows well that the Prime Minister goes missing when it counts and that you can't believe a word he says.

Now, it might sound strange, but this is where the government's at. The fact that they hate each other—that they fight amongst themselves, that every day is like a montage from Mean Girlsis not the real problem. That the Prime Minister's character is a pattern of mendacity is not the real problem. And 'terminological inexactitude', as Winston Churchill called it, is not the real problem. The real problem now is the impact on Australians and on our nation, because the Prime Minister's not doing his job. The government is focused on itself, not on governing. It's as simple and as sad as that.

But the Prime Minister's pattern is well established: for every problem, it's someone else's fault. Every crisis is someone else's responsibility. And eventually every response is too little too late, driven by politics, not people. It's the same formula; we now see it. It's gone on for long enough; you can see it. He denies and disregards. He disappears. He distracts, he deflects, he divides, and then when he acts it's deficient, and he's derelict in his duty. That's it. His denial and his disregarding is dangerous now. We saw it in the bushfires, the vaccine rollout and the rapid antigen testing crisis over summer. He didn't meet with the fire chiefs—didn't order the aerial bombers that they said they needed. He didn't order the vaccines. He told Australians we were at the front of the queue; we will never forget that. That wasn't true, though, was it? Now, I'm not going to say which queue it was. It wasn't the close one; it was the far one. He wouldn't meet with the CEO of Pfizer. And he didn't order the rapid antigen tests. Every developed nation in the world had their government secure the supplies in a competitive market. He was warned.

That's the common theme with all this: the Prime Minister was warned on the bushfires, he was warned on the vaccines and he was warned on the tests, and he did not learn from his mistakes. And with distribution, when he finally acted, too little too late, he chose to put private profit over public health. Rapid antigen tests should be freely available on Medicare. That's how we do health in this country. He ignores the problem until it becomes a crisis. Then, after that doesn't work, he tries disappearing, hiding under the doona—derelict. He goes missing for days and sometimes weeks, as we've seen. We saw it in the bushfires: he went to Hawaii, and then his office lied about it. And the quarantine, the vaccines, the rolling lockdowns across most of the country, every state and territory last year, because of the Prime Minister—he was always nowhere to be seen, at the peak of the crisis, when we needed him most. And the testing: just hoping things would go away.

Then we get the distractions and the diversions, the photo-ops, the marketing, the stunts. I've learnt, Deputy Speaker—and you might have educated me on this—that you can't read those hashtags into Hansard. But Australians know what they are. It was the Prime Minister's job to equip the fire chiefs, but it wasn't his job to force people to shake his hand in the fire zones. As Sean Kelly said, it was like a 'malfunctioning electronic device'—wandering around. It was a photo-op; it wasn't a comfort visit. And it's not his job during the aged-care crisis to go and wash women's hair in a hair salon—it's downright creepy, as well. It's not his job, when kids can't get vaccinated, to pretend he's a pilot or a racing car driver to distract people. It's not his job, when businesses are closing from lack of tests and staff, to play cricket commentator over summer and see whether that distraction works for a day.

Then there was Novak Djokovic. The Prime Minister manufactured that crisis. The government gave this guy a visa and then spent a week—deliberately, incompetently—trying to cancel it and kick him out of the country, when they'd brought him here in the first place, to break the media cycle around the testing crisis. But, oh Lord, can you imagine what we're going to see this weekend, after the week he's had? Well, you actually don't have to imagine it. They've already pressed the panic button. We saw that in question time. And 60 Minutes is up on Sunday. The Prime Minister's going to be serving margaritas to Karl Stefanovic in the Lodge—it's the best thing since Christopher Pyne had to make his own G&T in his little log cabin! But the secret weapon, Jenny, is going to save him. Now, that's nice of her. I think it's lovely of her to do this for him—absolutely terrific—and that she could find the time, because it was only a few weeks ago that we learnt she was busy scouring every chemist in Canberra for RATs, or trying to find out the price of milk or bread for him.

But when that doesn't work we go to deflection—that's DEFCON 4: deflection. He blames everyone else—anyone else—for his own mistakes. It's the states, it's the premiers, it's Labor, it's the man on the moon. He's the master blame shifter. But the final one: eventually, when he's forced to act, it's deficient—too little too late. We saw it on JobKeeper: bad design, and too slow; 100,000 people ended up on the unemployment queue instead of attached to their job, because he didn't act when Labor told him to, and then he designed the scheme badly, adding tens of billions of dollars to the national debt for the next generation to repay, giving payment to businesses to increase their profits when they did not need it.

And then there's aged care. We heard about that, powerfully, from the member for Hotham yesterday. There have been 622 deaths this year alone. Eleven hundred homes have outbreaks. The Prime Minister saw this coming. He was warned. He did nothing. The minister went to the cricket for three days, yet the Prime Minister has done nothing. He won't sack the minister. He says it's not a crisis, but then, to break the media cycle before parliament resumes, he sends in the Army. But it's not a crisis!

Make no mistake—beware—if this bloke is re-elected, if he scrapes back into power, he'll do it all over again, because that's who he is. That's what he is. The worst weapon in his dark arsenal is not the dissembling or the deceiving; it's the division. If MPs, including me, look a little worse for wear today, it's not because of Boris Johnson-style parties. We were here until 5 am sorting out his latest mess on religious discrimination. Instead of uniting the country, he uses faith communities and gay and trans children for base political purposes—as wedges, as human shields, to divide the country. He's had four years to fix this, and yet we had 24 hours to consider his half-baked divisive idea. Shame on him!

Yet, this morning, after the House fixed part of his mess, he was out there briefing out from his office that the effort to stop discrimination and bullying against all kids must be stopped, even though that's 100 per cent what he promised. He forgets that, when he writes a letter, you can read it months later—he promised he would do that. When he says stuff on TV, you can go back and watch it—he promised he'd do that. He's so committed now, we find, to religious protections that he's just dropped them.

But they always focus on themselves. We were here till 5 am. There's one big thing that he said he would do that he has not done, and that is a national anticorruption commission. The government says, 'Well, there's no time.' There are eight sitting days left. I say to the government: if you're serious about a national anticorruption commission, bring on the debate. I know that if you bring on that debate my colleagues and I will be here until 5 am tomorrow. We'll be here all weekend; we'll be here next week. There are five weeks till the budget. We will get it done. If only the government had the guts to bring on the debate!

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's always a great pleasure to be able to follow on from the member for Bruce. I actually have an affection for him. He's theatrical in his performance. In fact, he performs substantially better than most of the other members, particularly on the frontbench, of the opposition. Of course, the actual matter of public importance has been about a focus on Australians. That's an entirely legitimate thing to raise as an issue. We care deeply on this side of the chamber about Australians and their future. Yet the member for Bruce focused only on one Australian. Despite his claim that the criticism of the government was about its failure to focus on every Australian, he was obsessed with only one. It's part of a constant attempt by the opposition to assassinate the character of the Prime Minister—with one objective only. We all know that, within a few months, the people of Australia will go to the polls and they will make a decision about who is going to run this country for the next three years.

Of course, the opposition know they can't win the hearts and minds and confidence of Australians. They don't actually have any solutions to the challenges that our country faces. They know, as was remarked many times throughout the last question time, that Australia is entering a very challenging period. The director-general of ASIO outlined that in his threat assessment recently. The opposition have no actual answer for that. This government is actually focusing on not only governing but also making sure that every Australian is safe, secure and has those economic opportunities.

The only objective of the Labor Party is to win the election by assassinating the character of the Prime Minister, because they have no other way of doing it. It's based on a sneaking-in strategy with, of course, the help of the Greens. We know that. The Greens now talk about how they have shadow ministers waiting to be sworn in to a Labor-Greens coalition government. But, increasingly, as the member for Warringah and others have highlighted, the opportunity for them to leverage their position should they be re-elected with others will mean that they will be able to hold the government of the nation hostage too. Because they don't actually want stable government or government that is focused on the full spectrum of the Australian people; they're just looking for a pathway to sneak into power.

They know what Australians know, which is that, past the colour and light of parliament—and let's not pretend otherwise: sometimes there is. We were all here until 5 am this morning. We are all tired. Some of us are even a little bit cranky. But, past the colour, movement and light of parliament and Canberra and the things that obsess the media, the purpose of this parliament is to design laws and deliver programs to make sure not just that we advance the national interest, economic opportunity and national security but that Australians are able to live out the fullness and the opportunity of their lives every day.

Think of the challenges we have faced over the past few years. When we were all elected into this chamber at the start of this term, not a single one of us would have said: 'You know what we're going to spend most of this term doing? Fighting a global pandemic and securing Australia against one of its biggest external threats, on a health basis, in over 100 years.' None of us thought that. I certainly didn't. I had different plans, focused on what we were going to do to reform the superannuation system and making sure Australians have an economic opportunity through home ownership. But we all know that the focus has shifted because of a much more immediate and urgent concern. Despite this challenge, despite everything we have faced as a nation—and full credit goes to the Australian people for the sacrifices they have made to support themselves, their families and their communities, because that is their victory and their success—the numbers tell the story about where we are.

I remember when weren't sitting here until 5 am. I remember getting on flights to Canberra when only a small number of us could come into this chamber, at the start of this pandemic, and we sat for very short periods of time to pass urgent legislation. We were looking over the precipice and thought the economic costs of a pandemic could very well lead to mass unemployment, Australians losing their homes, collapses in property prices and Australians finding themselves in an economically perilous situation. Now, nearly two years later, look at the numbers. There have been 1.1 million jobs created since the pandemic hit—the lowest unemployment in over 30 years. That is Australians living out their lives and their full opportunity, against that backdrop. There are 11.5 million Australians benefiting from tax relief—people keeping more of their own money in their own pocket to support their own families. Recently, there was data out showing that Australians have up to four years of repayments in their mortgage offset accounts because they're unsure, quite reasonably, what's going to come next. If there's anything Australians don't need right now it's uncertainty and the indulgence of a Labor government that is the more focused on the character assassination of the Prime Minister than on what it is that they can do to back Australians to live out the success of their lives.

Of course, the story continues. Where have the majority of those jobs and opportunities for business operators gone? To women. We often talk in this place about gender equity and how important it is, and I'm very much a strong believer in that. We want empowered women to be able to live out the success of their lives. There were 815,600 female business operators in August 2021. We want Australians from all backgrounds to be able to have a go and to be able to get on with their lives. And we have 220,000 trade apprentices—a record high. We have an incredible story to tell, as a nation, of our success.

While jobs have been going up and the economy has been going up, our emissions have been going down, and this is something I'm particularly passionate about in my portfolio area. So many countries promise big, high-theory numbers about what it is they're going to achieve, but Australia is on the pathway to carbon neutrality by 2050. We have cut our emissions by 20 per cent on 2005 levels, and we're already projected to cut them by 35 per cent by the end of the decade, smashing our targets. This is because we have the policies in place to make sure that Australians are empowered, and it's built on a partnership. We're not going down the reckless and irresponsible path that the Labor Party has chosen so many times in the past by seeking to impose taxes as a single blunt instrument. For the Labor Party, everything is a nail and the hammer is always a tax, and it's directly on Australians and their households.

The other thing we have seen is electricity prices going down. Bills have been going down. Taxes are down. Electricity bills are down. The empowerment of Australians is up. We've seen one in four Australian homes with rooftop solar—the highest in the world. We are a No. 1, and we are very proud of that.

But it's also all of the other things we're doing to make sure Australians have their success and can live out the best of their lives. Ninety-nine per cent of homes and businesses, more than 12 million, have access to the National Broadband Network, in comparison to the legacy of the Labor Party, who basically couldn't even find an electrician to turn on any household in the country. Over 1,200 mobile black spot base stations have now been funded, with over 900 already built—a huge improvement to the welfare of rural and regional communities in particular, where black spots can have a direct impact on whether people get access to phone reception at life-or-death moments. There are 135,000 new home projects, backed, of course, by the HomeBuilder program.

Over 93 per cent of Australians are protected with vaccines. Whatever the Labor Party likes to say or has constantly harped on about in the past, we have seen Australians take up vaccinations at internationally epic levels, and we should be proud of that. We thank all our healthcare first responders and those healthcare workers who have been part of that solution with the Australians who've been prepared to roll up their sleeves so that they can get a vaccine directly into their arms to protect themselves and their fellow Australians, particularly the most vulnerable. We're ranked second in the world for pandemic preparedness, according to the Johns Hopkins index—something that we should all be proud of.

Of course, we are focused on making sure that Australia is prepared, no matter what may yet come. We've made compelling and challenging decisions on defence which have led to some of the highest spending. There are 100,000 new defence industry jobs and 15,000 small and medium businesses that are being supported across the supply chain. Seventy defence vessels and 1,700 vehicles are being built here in our great country, to defend our country no matter what may come. And of course there are significant agreements with alliance partners, particularly the United Kingdom and the United States—something we should be proud of.

We are caring for our vulnerable, with 163,105 new aged-care home packages. There are 502,413 people on the National Disability Insurance Scheme, funded—unlike the Labor Party—so that those who are disabled aren't just sold a promise; they're also sold a delivery. There are 857 new medicines listed on the Pharmaceutical Benefits Scheme. At every point, the focus of this government is on the Australian people, not on the Canberra bubble.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This MPI is about focus and delivery—delivering for the Australian people. The member for Bruce has already outlined how this government has comprehensively failed to deliver for the Australian people during the pandemic. They failed to deliver a national quarantine system. They failed to deliver vaccines on time when the Australian population needed them. They failed to deliver RATs. And they're failing right now in aged care—the member for Bruce covered all this—and this is an inexcusable failure by this government.

But I want to concentrate on something else that's been canvassed a lot in question time today, which is this government's failure on the most important duty of a federal government—that is, ensuring the defence and national security of this nation. They love to drape the flag around themselves. They love to hide behind khaki when it comes close to an election. And you saw the disgraceful effort from the defence minister today—disgraceful; utterly unprecedented. It's a brave choice by the Liberal Party, given their great hero is Robert Gordon Menzies, a man known to be a Nazi appeaser—a man known to have advocated for doing a deal with Hitler 10 days after Poland was invaded. Ten days after Poland was invaded—

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will pause. The member for Riverina?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm afraid the member at the dispatch box should withdraw that slur against the former Prime Minister.

No way! That is unacceptable—to accuse Robert Menzies of being a Nazi appeaser! You should withdraw, and you should withdraw now.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Riverina will resume his seat and the member for Shortland will pause. I'm just referring it to the Clerk.

Honourable members interjecting—

Whilst the comment wasn't made against a sitting member, it was unparliamentary and I'll get the member to withdraw.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Do I get the time back, Mr Deputy Speaker?

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You'll withdraw.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw to assist the House, but the fact remains that 10 days after Poland was invaded Robert Gordon Menzies wrote a letter to the high commissioner, advocating for a peace deal with Hitler. That is the truth.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will pause for a moment. The member for Riverina?

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He should just withdraw, Mr Deputy Speaker. You've asked him and he's defying your directions.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He has withdrawn. The member will continue.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're ashamed of their own history. They're ashamed of their own history on defence, which included sending troops to Vietnam on a lie—a war in which 500 Australians died. They're ashamed of their history of lying to get us into the Second Gulf War because the truth is they've always politicised national security.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order. An unparliamentary remark was made against a collective group of people. In the past, I understand, under Practice, if it is not withdrawn, it would lead to individual members getting up individually and claiming—

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The unparliamentary remark that I was referring to was one made against a former Prime Minister who is no longer serving.

Tim Wilson (Goldstein, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister to the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And a remark was just made regarding 'our history' or the government's history and deception.

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The assistant minister will take his seat. The member for Shortland will resume.

Pat Conroy (Shortland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for International Development and the Pacific) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. This is how sensitive they are about their actual record on national security. This is why it's laughable for them to attack Labor when they have presided over the Hunter class frigate program that has blown out by two years. The budget has blown out from $30 billion to $45 billion. The project is 2,000 tonnes overweight, the ships will be slower than the rest of the fleet, the ships will have a shorter range and the ships will be very noisy, which is a problem for a submarine hunter. Most remarkably, the frigate captains will have to choose between using the radar or sailing at full speed, a problem when you're trying to avoid a missile attack.

This is the truth about this government on national defence. They will drape themselves in the flag, but when it comes to delivering for the ADF and delivering for taxpayers, they go hiding, they go missing. They use the ADF as a political prop time and again, but when it comes to delivering for the ADF, they go missing. Look at the $3.7 billion of MRH-90 helicopters cancelled because they can't deliver a project. The Attack class submarines were cancelled, wasting $4 billion. The truth is that this government cannot deliver for this nation and cannot deliver for national security. They are simply incompetent.

Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If the member for Shortland wants a history lesson, he should stay in the chamber; I might give him a couple of facts and figures. When in government last time, that side dropped defence spending as a percentage of GDP to the lowest level in this nation since 1938—and we all know what happened in 1939. That is a fact.

I'm the member for a garrison town, Wagga Wagga, where all three arms of the Defence Force proudly serve with bases. We've got Kapooka, home of the soldier, where every young and not-so-young recruit goes to do their basic training. We've got the Air Force, and if you spend any given time in the RAAF, you end up at Forest Hill. We've even got a Navy base, even though we're many hundreds of kilometres from the nearest drop of sea water.

We are investing in defence like no government before. We are investing in defence as a government right across this nation, with 70 defence vessels and 1,700 vehicles being built in Australia, with Australian hands, with Australian products; and with 100,000 defence industry jobs created and 15,000 small and medium businesses supported. We as a government are putting money back into defence, not like that lot. They deserted our ADF in their hour of need, but we are putting the investment back where it's properly needed so that our defence people, those proud people who wear the khaki and the blue and the white uniforms when they are on patrol and when they are on peacekeeping missions, can have the very best equipment. They know that they have a government which has their back.

We all know that actions speak louder than words. We are generally judged not by what we say but by what we do. I'm going to read a couple of quotes from somebody about this very topic at hand. The most important test of a government is how it backs and supports jobs. We are backed and supported by the words from this person, who said, 'You judge a budget by jobs and opportunities and what it says about the future'. He also added:

That is absolutely the key test. The government, the opposition, any decision-maker in the economy, should be judged on what happens to unemployment …

This was said in 2020:

The test for this budget is what it means for unemployment. If unemployment is too high for too long, then this budget and this Government would have failed its central task.

There's a theme here:

The test of the Morrison Government's management of the recession and its aftermath is what happens to jobs and the businesses which create them.

I couldn't agree more! He also added that a test was 'whether or not unemployment stays too high for too long'. Finally, he said, 'I expect that that will be the main issue at this election: what happens to jobs.' The member for McEwen is onto who I'm referring to: it's the shadow Treasurer, the member for Rankin.

I absolutely agree with him. It is all about jobs. That is why, when we came to government with the unemployment rate at 5.7 per cent and rising, we knew had to do something. We knew that we had to help businesses. It's not government that creates jobs. It's businesspeople, farmers and those small businesses that open the doors, take the risks and take out the big debts to help employ Australians. And what's the rate now? 4.2 per cent. What is it in regional Australia? It's 3.8 per cent. There are 70,000 jobs in regional Australia going right now. There are vacancies that need filling and we're doing something about it with all the measures that we're putting in place.

Most importantly, those people who have jobs are paying less tax. Under that mob, if they get the Treasury benches after the next election, goodness knows how much tax they'll be paying. At the moment the tax rate for small business is the lowest it's been in decades. Indeed, for personal income tax payers we are lowering taxes all the time. They stand for higher taxes. They stand for fewer jobs. We are the ones who support the economy. We are the ones who support Australian Defence Force people. Indeed, at the last election what did they stand for? $387 billion of higher taxes: a retiree's tax, a superannuation tax and a housing tax. That's what they stand for. If Australians want to risk the future of this nation, vote 1 Labor, because that's what will happen. But, if they want to back a government that's going to support lower taxes, it's the Liberals and Nationals they should put a 1 beside.

Alicia Payne (Canberra, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The MPI today is about the failures of this government to deliver for the Australian people. There is no more pressing example than the current crisis that our aged-care system is in. Aged care was in crisis before COVID. We have seen report after report. We have seen a royal commission showing absolutely unacceptable neglect in aged care, with neglectful, disgraceful treatment of our older Australians, our parents, our grandparents, our husbands and wives and loved ones, who are suffering. The workers who front up every day have fronted up every day of this pandemic, at risk to their own health and their family's health, to care for these people because they care so deeply about the residents that they care for. But the government is not there supporting them at all.

On Tuesday we met with a group of workers from the aged-care sector from the Australian Nursing & Midwifery Federation. It was an honour to meet with those people, predominantly women, and hear about what they are going through at the moment. Some of them had fronted up after working through night shifts because it was so important for them to be here to give this message. The Prime Minister didn't come out and meet with them. The Prime Minister doesn't care about what's going on in aged care. In fact, he denied time and time again that it was a crisis until realising that people knew it was a crisis. It's always someone else's fault.

The very minister who is responsible has failed time and time again to prevent and manage this foreseeable crisis of preventable deaths of vulnerable Australians in the aged-care system that is clearly a federal government responsibility. On their watch these people have died and these people are suffering, isolated and neglected. A quarter of the shifts for the workers who care for them are not being filled at the moment, because of the COVID crisis. It could have been prevented if boosters and RATs, rapid antigen tests, had been delivered to the residents and the staff in aged care.

We knew this was coming. We knew this. We are three years into this pandemic, and even before it hit here in Australia we knew that one of the most vulnerable parts of our community was the aged-care sector. We knew that that's where we had to get the vaccines rolled out immediately. This government failed in 2020, and they have failed again with this omicron variant, which we should have seen coming. We saw this coming, and they weren't there for those vulnerable Australians. Now we've got the Defence Force going into aged care. It should never have come to this.

What a situation we have here, with the stories you hear from the people working in aged care, working so hard to deliver these people some dignity. These people are in agony. People are falling out of bed, lying on the floor. Which person do you go to first—the person who has fallen or the person who needs to be taken to the toilet or needs to be changed or needs to be showered or needs to be fed? It's not happening. People are isolated, away from their families, and ill. Families are desperately worried about these people in aged care. It is not good enough.

If there is any question about whether this Prime Minister even cares about Australians, it has been this awful summer that Australians have endured and the way that he smirked his way through it at the cricket, saying, 'We're taking wickets in the pandemic.' People were ill. People were dying. His answer has always been to see it as a political problem. When the testing started to fail, rather than getting RATs out to people for free, he said, 'Get out of the line. Go to the beach. Jenny can pick up a RATs when she goes down to the chemist'—when we all know it was just about impossible to get them.

This is a government that does not care. We are in the dying days of this parliament and we are debating bills to divide Australians rather than legislation to address this urgent crisis. It is unforgivable from this government.

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'd like to commend the member for Riverina on his very impassioned speech in defence of the former prime ministers of Australia, who should receive the respect of this parliament—

Honourable Member:

An honourable member interjecting—

Llew O'Brien (Wide Bay, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member will take his seat.

An honourable member interjecting—

Pat Conaghan (Cowper, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How quickly we forget. It's just under three short years ago that we were looking at a drought across the nation—and I'm happy to speak for the next four minutes on this government and how we have focused and how we have delivered over the past three years, whether it be on drought, floods, fires, floods or pandemics. But when I first came into this role, when we had that devastating drought, this government had the recovery allowance scheme for those who were struggling through the drought, the community support initiative, the isolated children scheme, the access to telehealth services. It was shortly after that that we had the fires. The former Deputy Prime Minister, the member for Riverina, came up to my electorate and spoke with David and Carolyn Duff, who were absolutely ravaged. They had lost almost everything. We stood there with them and tried to understand what they were going through, and it was absolutely torturous for them. But the federal government was there, walking with them, providing the $75,000 federal grant and then the low-interest loans of up to $2 million, which they described as 'a game changer'. We were there for them then, and, when floods ravaged Telegraph Point, Rollands Plains and Port Macquarie, the Prime Minister was there, front and centre, wading through the water, moving debris. He wasn't there for a photo opportunity; he was there because he cared. There were $50,000 grants for businesses and $75,000 grants for primary producers. We had thousands of dead cattle floating down the river onto the beaches in Port Macquarie. This can't be politicised. We have to walk a day in these people's shoes. The Whalebone Wharf had just completed a half-million-dollar renovation, which was washed away overnight. These are people's emotions, these are people's livelihoods, and the federal government has walked with them.

Then we faced coronavirus. The member for Goldstein referred to looking over that precipice. I remember the first two weeks of the coronavirus pandemic. I remember the panic and the fear in people about what was going to happen. And then the federal government stepped up with JobKeeper, which saved 700,000 jobs, kept employees and employers together and helped with the mental health of employees and employers. And we continued to work with them with JobSeeker and HomeBuilder, ensuring that the economy was strong. The result speaks for itself. We have worked together.

The biggest problem in my area when I was elected was that in Coffs Harbour youth unemployment was 20.3 per cent. It is now less than four per cent, which is below the national average. Unemployment in Coffs Harbour is less than the national average, and businesses are thriving. People are working their way out of the pandemic, and what they don't want to see is this rubbish, this garbage, in this place. All they want to know is: how am I going to make the next dollar? How am I going to look after my family? Where am I going in the future? And the future is this government because we will work out of this pandemic. We will work out of this debt that was incurred because of a one-in-100-year pandemic.