Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to some of the extraordinary comments made by those on the other side. I will reflect on how incredibly fortunate we are that we are going through a global pandemic and not a war, because Australians expect their leadership, their politicians, their representatives, to stand together and find solutions to difficult times. And yet, once again, we have listened to the opposition describe a complete lack of understanding of the realities of the world. They have an inability to stand shoulder to shoulder in difficult times and, instead, take every opportunity to throw stones. There has been no manual to the COVID pandemic. Instead, we find the opposition trying to find ways of demonstrating how clever they would have been with the benefit of hindsight—just brilliant!

One of the senators just spoke about the 27 leaks from hotel quarantine, but there have been no leaks from the federally operated Howard Springs. They also mentioned that there has not been a fast enough rollout of the vaccine. So I would like to speak about what's been happening in my state, the great state of Queensland. The greatest impediment to vaccinating Queenslanders has been our own Labor state government. In fact, Queensland Health did not order any AstraZeneca vaccine doses in July and only 1,000 doses in May. How extraordinary is that? With the Queensland Chief Health Officer making extraordinary pronouncements about AstraZeneca in the face of worldwide recommendations to take advice from your medical practitioner, we had no AstraZeneca doses ordered in July. So Queenslanders are not being given the opportunity to consult with their doctor on what decision is best for them. In fact, I think the vaccine hesitancy in Queensland can be sheeted back to some of this messaging.

Queensland has the second lowest rate of fully vaccinated people, at just over 18 per cent, and the lowest rate of people who have had one dose, at just under 37 per cent. Anecdotally, in my home city of Townsville, some young people are saying they've tried six times to be vaccinated and been turned away due to a lack of supply of Pfizer even when they had consulted and were happy and able to have AstraZeneca. Queensland Health stats for yesterday, Monday, show that 591 people received a dose at the new Townsville vaccination station but that not one person received the vaccination from hospitals and health centres across the entire Townsville region—not one person. The Ayr population is 8,700 people, but just 796 shots have been provided in total and none were yesterday. Ingham has 4,300 people. Just 677 shots have been provided and zero were yesterday. At Charters Towers, population 8,100, just 627 total doses have been administered and none were yesterday.

The opposition is also going to talk about consulting with tourism operators in Cairns and Townsville, the very areas that were on their knees because the state government refused to increase the number of people allowed into a space from one person per four square metres to one person per two square metres, as it was on the mainland, if you were going out on cruise boats or other charter vessels. This meant these businesses were unviable for far longer than they were in other states.

They also talked about homeschooling and how difficult that is for parents—and it is! The reason we know that is because we have geographically isolated children right across this nation, which Labor never ever seems to reflect on or remember. But what Labor have come up with is a 'cash for jabs' program. This is Labor's latest version of pink batts or school halls, another example of Labor taking Australian taxpayers' money but not improving the safety or the position of Australian people.