Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Ruston, for ceding your time. As this motion makes clear, we are calling on the Senate first of all to applaud the incredible sacrifices made by the Australian people and the heroes of our pandemic—the essential workers who have kept us safe. All Australians and these heroes of the pandemic have been profoundly let down by a small group of government MPs who are determined to run a constant misinformation campaign about COVID. They are also being profoundly let down by a weak Prime Minister who never takes responsibility. He never took responsibility for bushfires or for vaccines, and he's not taking responsibility for ensuring that his own members of parliament and his own senators contribute to the public debate in a way that keeps us safe.

This motion focuses on the efforts of the member for Dawson, Mr Christensen, who for many months has been waging an online COVID misinformation campaign, to build up his Facebook followers for his post-parliamentary career at the expense of the health and the economy of Australians. That has culminated this week in his infamous speech given to the House of Representatives, which I notice that Facebook has now removed from its videos because it contains harmful health information in breach of its COVID misinformation policy. Even a tech giant like Facebook, which is all about making money and, let's face it, has allowed the spread of a lot of misinformation over the years, is prepared to take action to ensure that Mr Christensen's dangerous lies are not being spread into the community, but the Prime Minister won't take action and nor will the Deputy Prime Minister.

This motion also focuses on the continued efforts of Senator Canavan and Senator Rennick, who also engage in a misinformation campaign. We all know it is about them courting far Right votes in the community and dragging them back from One Nation, which is why Senator Hanson is so upset about what's going on as well. This is a deliberate tactic from Senators Canavan and Rennick to court far Right votes to make sure that they and their government get re-elected.

I have been asking for some time why it is that the Prime Minister won't take action and won't take responsibility for the comments of his government members, and it has been made very clear today by comments made by the Deputy Prime Minister on ABC TV this morning. When asked why Mr Joyce was not prepared to take action about Mr Christensen's disinformation campaign, he said:

If you start prodding the bear, you're going to make the situation worse for us as a government, not better.

I'll say that to my colleagues, I can assure you that when you've got a thin margin, don't start giving reasons for a by-election.

Finally, someone in the government has been honest about why they are not prepared to do anything about the constant misinformation campaign conducted by Mr Christensen and by senators like Senator Rennick and Senator Canavan. It is because this government cares more about hanging onto power than about actually taking responsibility and making sure that its own members are not conducting a misinformation campaign. This government is more concerned about hanging onto its own jobs than about stopping misinformation being put into the community which is endangering people's health and the jobs and economy that all Australians enjoy. This government is more concerned about its own jobs than about the jobs of tourism workers—those on the Gold Coast, in Cairns and in every other place in the country—that are now at risk because of the poor vaccine rollout of this government, because of its failure to deliver quarantine and now because of its failure to take serious action about the efforts of its own MPs.

How can we expect the Australian people to listen to government messaging, to comply with restrictions and to take precautions if we have members of the government out there day after day encouraging Australians to do exactly the opposite? How can the government expect any of the money that it has been putting into its public information campaign to work when the campaign is constantly being undermined by its own MPs? This motion is a test for this government. It was passed by members of the government in the House of Representatives. It's clear that some members of this government won't back it when it's put to a vote in this chamber. It's clear that Senator Canavan, for instance, won't be supporting this motion, because he says that he needs to do his job. Well, unfortunately, it seems that Senator Canavan and other members of this government consider their job to be spreading disinformation, rather than actually engaging in a proper discussion and encouraging Australians to do the right thing, to protect their health, for themselves, for their families, for their communities and for the sake of the Australian economy. It is an utter disgrace that this government has allowed this misinformation campaign to go on. It's about time they took action and put other jobs in front of their own.