Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I'm more than happy to start again, but the whole beginning of my contribution was interrupted by people who just don't care and will just play their game of words while, literally, New South Wales is in a lockdown such as has never been seen in the history of this country. As a senator for New South Wales, I am so disgusted with what's going on in my home state. Three hundred and forty-four cases were reported just today, with 62 in ICU. There have been 34 deaths.

I want to formally commence with my acknowledgement of the civic leadership shown by Mr Khalil Ibrahim and his family by coming forward, in the depth of their grief at the loss of their mother and father, Kaoukab and Hachem, and going on the record to deliver a health literacy message and some hope to the people of New South Wales—telling the truth about what's going on, because you're not going to get the truth from the government in this place. They don't know how to tell it straight any day of the week. To Khalil and his family: I send you my condolences on your great loss. I am standing up here for our community because this government is incapable of standing up. They are incoherent in their messaging. Even the best Australians trying to do the right thing cannot get access to the very vaccines that they need to protect them. In fact, in this poor family, Kaoukab and Hachem were waiting. To make it worse, the family discovered that Hachem and Kaoukab were waiting in the backlog to get their vaccination. That is a fact. That is the fact that's facing many of the 62 who are in ICU because they couldn't get a vaccination. How many of the 344 who were announced today as the latest people in New South Wales with COVID couldn't get a vaccination? Thirty-four people have died in just this outbreak alone, and it's because the government didn't do its job.

There's the incoherent messaging, perhaps very succinctly outlined in the cartoon by Golding: a picture of synchronised swimming, described as 'synchronised spinning', with the Prime Minister. It has an image of the Prime Minister with his hand raised and saying, 'We're at the front of the queue,' and in the second image he says, 'We're at the back of the queue.' In the next image, he says, 'It's not a race,' and in the following image he says, 'Okay, it is a race.' Then he says, 'I'm confident NSW can get it done without shutting down,' before saying, 'Shutting down is the only way.' That kind of spinning is exactly what we see in this chamber day after day, while New South Wales is confronting the horror of a COVID outbreak that was entirely preventable if the proper advice had been followed. Instead, we saw the Bondi let-off, we saw the gold standard pumped up by the Prime Minister, and now everyone in New South Wales is failing.

We have doctors in New South Wales telling it like it is, giving warnings that need to be heeded, but not just by the people of New South Wales who are lining up trying to get vaccines and can't get them because this government failed to buy them when they were required. On the record from an experienced respiratory specialist is the claim that New South Wales is suffering from not just the disease and the lack of vaccines but also a failure of leadership. It's the confusing messaging. In New South Wales, I talk to my family. I FaceTime with them because I can't be with them; we're all locked away from one another. We can't get clarity on the message. Is the current strategy to lock down and eliminate COVID or are we trying to vaccinate our way out of it? The people in New South Wales have no sense of the real direction of this government, and the cost is lives.

I want to close my contribution by saying politics does matter. The decisions of this government are having a real and significant impact on the lives of people. I particularly want to thank the heroes of this pandemic—scientists, doctors, nurses, those in aged care, disability workers, cleaners and other essential workers—who are out there doing their best and telling the truth, not spinning it every day and failing to stand up and lead in the way that this government is now absolutely known for. (Time expired)