Ben Small (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

With the Tokyo Olympics underway, I embrace the sporting analogies that suit the moment. We've heard lots about long jumps and leaps, but we haven't heard anything about policy belly flops. Australians following this at home have clearly seen one this week, with the Labor Party's latest cheap political stunt that ultimately highlights the fact that they have nothing positive to say about the President and are embarrassingly silent on a plan for Australia's recovery.

Every simply person on the government benches in this place, from the Prime Minister down, has been honest about our response to the pandemic not being perfect. It has had wrinkles and speed bumps, but I guess that's what you get when you're trying to run a country and having to deal with a once-in-a-century global pandemic. We have, however, shown great resilience and adaptability in the face of the biggest health crisis since the Spanish flu pandemic and, arguably, the biggest economic calamity since the Great Depression. We have turned a corner with a plan to return Australia to a post-COVID normal. The PM himself has taken responsibility for the early setbacks in our vaccination program. Let's not forget that the Italians prohibiting the release of 3.8 million doses of AstraZeneca in February was a significant setback completely outside the control of this government. But it was in fact the decision of the Morrison government in August last year to ensure that we had a sovereign vaccine manufacturing capability in this country that enabled us to overcome that.

Our progress to date isn't the disaster that Labor would represent. There was no plan at any time that had Australia fully vaccinated by today. Those opposite tend to forget that even at the beginning of the pandemic the Morrison government acted quickly and decisively on key decisions to protect lives and livelihoods—not only the things I just mentioned but also being the first nation to close its borders to the world, declaring COVID-19 to be a pandemic more than two weeks before the World Health Organization did so. That early action was effective and gave us time, but now it's being used against us for cheap political stunts by the Labor Party. They're trying to take away from Australia's success. It's not the government's success; this is a success that is shared by all Australians in protecting lives to this point of the pandemic and upholding livelihoods through economic security. By undermining that response, those opposite are doing a disservice to the Australian people as much as they are to themselves.

Because of those early actions the Morrison government took, Australia, through the appropriate health authorities, put the vaccines through a normal approval process. This wasn't an emergency approval process that had to be rushed through as bodies piled up in the streets, and that's the cold, hard reality of the countries that those opposite point to now as winning this race. Australia did not find itself in that very difficult situation, because of the leadership that this government took in the early phases of the pandemic. We don't hear much from those opposite about that, but the reality is that there are more Australians who are still with us today than would have otherwise been the case without those very important decisions taken by this government. We have acknowledged that the vaccine rollout has had a slow start, especially compared to countries that have had a much greater death rate. But when you understand that our vaccination rate is now at some 1.2 million shots into arms every week—and accelerating—it's clear that we are well on the way to returning to a post-COVID normal.

Those opposite may claim that this is a failure of the Prime Minister, that this is a failure of this government. But, when you look at the cold, hard facts and cut through the Labor spin and their policy bellyflops, this is what you find: 200,000 vaccines being administered daily and 1.2 million vaccines being administered weekly. As supply increases that will continue to rise. Almost 80 per cent of those aged over 70 are protected with a first dose, and over 42 per cent have received a second dose. If we take the over-50s, more than two-thirds are protected with a first dose and 27 per cent have received a second dose. More than four in 10 Australians aged over 16 are protected with a first dose. Some 20 per cent, or one in five, have already received a second dose. So when those opposite bleat about the slip in the time line, from the end of October to the end of the year, let's not forget that an eight-week delay, given the imperfect information and the fact that we're operating in a once-in-a-century pandemic, is actually a great success on the part of the Australian people—overcome adversity, thriving on the challenges that this pandemic represents and looking forward to the future with that inherently Australian optimism.

The vaccination program continues to exponentially increase because we are not resting on our laurels. Much as our economic success won't stop, this is a government that has also recently announced an extra 85 million Pfizer vaccine doses, the majority of which will be delivered in the next 12 months. That is not a failure, and I think most Australians agree. They can see that those opposite are fear mongering and playing political games to the detriment of all Australians.

Not content with cheap politics, this week those opposite decided to adopt, in typical Labor fashion, the idea of throwing money at the solution. Having learnt nothing from cash for clunkers, pink batts and cheques for dead people from the last time they sat on the government benches, now they've decided to try and bribe Australians with their own money to do what they are doing in overwhelming numbers every day. That shows that they have learned nothing from their past failures in government. They have learned nothing from eight years on the opposition benches. They have not only offended those Australians that continue to do the right thing but again demonstrated why they are unfit to sit on the government benches. They're still suck in that ideological fantasy land where government spending from the magic money tree is the fix-all solution.

On the other hand, as I've outlined today, this is a coalition government that has consistently protected lives and livelihoods, acted early, acted decisively, been pragmatic and non-ideological, followed the health advice and delivered excellent outcomes for Australians by keeping their lives protected and keeping their livelihoods intact. We have acknowledged that JobKeeper and JobSeeker allowed the Australian economy to survive what would have otherwise been an economic calamity.

The lack of realistic solutions and inconsistencies from those on the other benches is astounding. My colleague Senator O'Sullivan was very right to point out that there were predictions from those on the Labor side that the end of JobKeeper would cause the economy to fall off a cliff. Instead we saw an unemployment rate with a four in front of it, more Australians in work than there were at the start of the pandemic and, in fact, near record participation rates, particularly for females, in the Australian workforce. In one breath they criticise us for preventing international arrivals and leaving Australians stranded overseas and then, in the next, they're having a go at hotel quarantine, which was a consensus decision taken by the national cabinet to ensure that the maximum number of returning Australians could be accommodated in the context of the health advice. That shows that they've got nothing to say that's productive. They're willing to throw any truth overboard in the pursuit of their cheap politics. That is why the Morrison government can be trusted to steer this nation out of the pandemic but those opposite cannot.