Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I rise to take note of Senator Birmingham's and Senator McKenzie's answers to questions. Senator Birmingham spent all his time covering the backs of members of his government when they espoused dodgy health advice. Maybe Senator Birmingham, in his answers to those questions, should start covering the backs of our mums and dads, our grandparents and our children and holding to account dodgy government members who are giving dodgy health advice.

The failure by this government on a series of levels has been particularly gross. We have seen the grossness of it because of a lack of proper action when it comes to the vaccine rollout. I note that, in the comments of others taking note of answers by the government, not one senator on the government side defended the government's silence on their own dodgy government members giving dangerous advice. The question of freedom of speech is always a critical one, but you need to call out when it's dangerous advice and putting our community at risk—our families and the public.

Quite clearly we've seen failure on a number of levels from this government—failure to hold dodgy members to account, failure to have adequate supply, failure to vaccinate and failure to quarantine. The failure on the vaccine front is important. I have my strong views. I have received AstraZeneca. I suggest many others should be doing the exact same thing. But clearly amongst the public, because of the government's misinformation and lack of an appropriate approach to this health issue, there is great disquiet right across our community.

Senator Canavan also said that people are just thinking about a particular viewpoint and that's our job. That might be your job, Senator Canavan, but the job of government members who know the right health advice is to espouse it and hold you to account. One of Mr Morrison's own cabinet ministers Niki Savva talked about Mr Morrison's philosophy—'If you see a problem, throw money at it; if you see a problem, walk away from it; if you see a problem, duckshove to somebody else.' This dangerous disinformation being run by this government's own party room is just another problem that Mr Morrison is walking away from.

Mr Christensen said:

When will the madness end? How many more freedoms will we lose due to fear of a virus which has a survivability rate of 997 out of a thousand? It's time we stopped spreading fear and acknowledged some facts. Masks do not work—fact … Lockdowns don't work—fact.

Quite clearly the government are in complete disarray about how they deal with this. We've seen, particularly in the situation with Mr Christensen, the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr Joyce, make it clear that he was not going to hold the government to account or hold those in the government to account if they were giving dodgy health advice. And why? Because of crass political opportunism—because of the fact that holding them to account means that they might blow back. Well, guess what: they're blowing back on the Australian community's health. They're blowing back on the outcomes that we need to make sure that we have a successful reopening of the economy and that the lockdowns can cease.

It goes to a very important question. A regional doctor, Dr Clyde Ronan of Yarrawonga Medical Clinic, said that more and more patients were no-shows for vaccination bookings due to false ideas circulating in the community. He went on to say:

Everybody seems to be an expert at the moment … We're being saturated with information, and not all of the information is useful … Otherwise, you get people speaking outside of their expertise. You get people with no expertise at all, and they've all got an opinion.

Well, quite clearly, vaccination hesitancy in this country is squarely at the feet of the misinformation and disinformation from the government's own members. It's incredibly important that they get their act together and that the government hold them to account.

Question agreed to.