Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's great to be back here in 2021 with my first speech on a motion to take note of answers. What a time to be alive. The distinction between this side of the chamber and that side has never been more stark, because this side of the chamber believes in progress. This side of the chamber wants to take Australia forward. What does that side of the chamber want? All they want is to continue on JobKeeper and JobSeeker. There are plenty of ways to keep people in work, like by building infrastructure, which is something that state governments need to be doing. On Tuesday, the RBA came out and issued another $100 billion in bonds. Let's build infrastructure. Stop tearing dams down in Queensland. If you want to get jobs out there in the regions, let's get them into coalmining, farming, logging and fishing.

It's interesting that Senator Sheldon raised the Chairman of Virgin Australia in his first question. I actually remember what she said last week in the Senate inquiry as well. She wanted a coordinated framework between the states to—guess what?—keep the borders open. This is the thing about the state governments; there's been a real contrast. The Liberal government of New South Wales and the Premier of New South Wales, Gladys Berejiklian, have kept the borders open the whole time, with the one exception of Victoria when it did blow up out of control. But the state Labor premiers keep locking down over—wait for it, wait for it—one. One case. Now, what kind of confidence do these people have in their own health systems when they panic over one case? What are their contact tracing and testing systems like and, more to the point, what are their quarantine systems like when they have to panic? The Queensland CMO couldn't understand how the virus could possibly spread in a hotel with ducted air conditioning. Seriously, you don't need to be a rocket scientist to work it out. You don't need to be a rocket scientist to work it out. Did that do daily testing? Did the state premiers do daily testing—