Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is shocking as a senator to have to come into this chamber and expose the shortcomings of the Prime Minister of this country, but I will come into this chamber every day and draw attention to the mismanagement, the lack of compassion and the lack of urgency in relation to us as a country being able to get ahead of the game when it comes to this pandemic.

Quite frankly, the minister does owe the Victorian community an apology. Certainly, the Prime Minister owes Victorians an apology. The Prime Minister and other members of the government have been saying there is not a race to roll out the vaccine. Well, quite frankly, this is a race that we need to win. We need to get ahead of this virus. It is mutating to the extent that we don't know if there are any bounds to this. Therefore, we should be ensuring that the most vulnerable members of our community—whether they're older Australians, whether they're people with disability or whether they're the people who are on the frontline—have access as quickly as possible to ensure that we get ahead of this virus. But the government continually blame the states because they never want to accept any responsibility. The Prime Minister is being known as the Prime Minister who never takes responsibility. He is a Prime Minister who can't be trusted.