Anne Urquhart (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

This motion captures the deep frustration and pain of the Australian people regarding the failure of Prime Minister Morrison to deliver a speedy, effective rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and a safe national quarantine, meaning that 10 million Australians are languishing in lockdown, yet again.

In the last 24 hours, we've heard some outrageous statements by those opposite, somehow trying to link Labor senators' concerns about this government's abject failure in these areas to the Olympic Games. Yesterday we heard Senator Hughes attempt to describe Labor as unpatriotic and unsupportive of 'Team Australia' because we demand, on behalf of the Australian people, an efficient vaccine rollout that allows Australians to get on with their lives, to be safe and to be out of lockdown. We could describe Senator Hughes's awkward attempts to draw this connection as a double backflip with a sideways deflection. In fact, she flipped so many times we were concerned that she might stumble and lose her balance entirely.

Today we heard Senator Chandler perform a magnificent long jump as she sincerely explained that we must learn to be flexible and adapt. What a magnificent leap that was! And what an insult it was to the millions of Australians who have juggled home schooling with working from home, the businesses that have built online stores, the cafes and restaurants that have turned to takeaways, the churches, artists and community organisations that have rebuilt their congregations and audiences online, the teachers who have switched to online classrooms almost overnight, and the health workers who have been so flexible with their working hours that they have not seen their families for days and have worked to the point of exhaustion. The majority of Australians have done an amazing and courageous job of pivoting and adapting to this pandemic. They do not need or deserve lectures from the Liberal Party senators on this subject. They deserve an efficient and effective vaccine program. They deserve world-class quarantine facilities, and they're tired of this rubbish from a government which has proven itself utterly unable to show leadership.

The Prime Minister is excellent at dodging the facts. He gives a gold medal performance in avoiding the apology that he owes the country, and he is truly gifted at coming last, because, for all Senator Hughes's sidesteps and deflections, we are coming last in the developed world when it comes to the vaccine rollout. In my part of the world, north-west Tasmania, the data the government released this week shows that we are towards the tail end of the field. In the north-west just 21.8 per cent of people aged over 15 have been fully vaccinated, which is five per cent behind Launceston and 3.5 per cent behind the capital, Hobart.

On first jabs the situation is markedly worse. The north-west is a full nine per cent behind Hobart. Many are struggling to access vaccinations. They still can't go to their pharmacy for a COVID jab and, despite workplace programs for flu vaccinations, they can't get a COVID vaccination at work. Their local community vaccination hub is closed. In my part of the world it's going to be open again in mid-August for three weeks to deliver dose 2 only. We were contacted by a Devonport woman who, with her family, has recently been trying to get vaccinated. The family includes a support worker with many vulnerable clients. Their local vaccination hub had been closed down. They rely on their local chemist for the flu vaccine and assumed that they'd be able to be vaccinated there. But, no, that wasn't the case.

Meanwhile Australians hear from overseas that countries like Germany, Hungary and France are so advanced with their vaccination programs that they'll be offering booster shots by September. There'll be booster shots in Europe when only 21 per cent of people on the north-west coast will have had two jabs. It is a race, and we are coming last. In fact, we've been lapped. Despite the government's backflips and twists, Australians know how badly the government has botched hotel quarantine and vaccinations. I'm sure that the government senators will continue channelling their inner Olympians and desperately twisting their language for the remainder of this sitting fortnight. We need to talk about a single, simple message to the Australian people, not the mixed messages and blaming that we're hearing from the Morrison government.