Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to join in the comments supporting the heroes on the front line of this health pandemic—to note that the scientists, the doctors, the nurses, the aged-care and disability workers and the cleaners, those essential workers, have been absolutely paramount. They are not 'clowns', as Senator Rennick has described them. I might add that they are mostly women and they are mostly underpaid. We should be paying them more. We are all still here thanks to them sacrificing their potential safety to be on the front line.

They are putting themselves on the front line and sacrificing their own potential safety because this Prime Minister could not manage the proverbial. He has utterly botched the vaccine rollout, he has utterly failed to build quarantine facilities and he has once again utterly failed to take responsibility for anything that is actually his job as the Prime Minister. This Prime Minister cannot show leadership because he simply is not a leader. He runs away from responsibility. He doesn't hold a hose. He doesn't have a plan. He doesn't have a clue. That is the problem here. He doesn't have the guts to stand up to the science deniers—and lunatics, frankly—in his own party, many of whom are on the backbench and some of whom used to be on the frontbench.

I note with interest that the government has circulated an amendment, which the Leader of the Government in the Senate just moved, seeking to amend this motion to delete reference to Senator Canavan and Senator Rennick. They don't want these folk named. They don't want to name these purveyors of misinformation, these utterly unhinged folk who are contending that masks don't work and that lockdowns don't work. Maybe they don't even think coronavirus is real! This government wants to delete reference to them and doesn't want them named in this motion. It's nothing more than a protection racket once again from this government. There is not a badly behaved man in their ranks that they will not run a protection racket for.

We have seen it with their treatment of women and now we are seeing it with the treatment of the fringe dwellers in their party that do not understand the science, whether it's the climate science or the health science. This government doesn't want to admit to and it certainly doesn't want to discipline these people, but it needs to because these folks are doing real damage. Look at the bloke who went from Sydney to Byron because he doesn't think COVID is real and he doesn't believe in vaccinations. He has sent them into a lockdown. He is potentially endangering the lives of many people, young and old. We have now had a man in his 20s and a man in his 30s die from this virus, and I understand they weren't fully vaccinated.

Disinformation about the effectiveness of vaccination is killing people, and this government's response is to say that they don't want to specifically name Senator Canavan and Senator Rennick, who are part of the cabal of disinformation in their own ranks. It is absolutely abominable. Take some responsibility. Call out these people. Send that message to the Australian public that they are desperate to hear from their government. Show some leadership and tell them to get vaccinated. What's more, order some bloody vaccines so they can actually get the vaccine. The Australian public expect the government to run the country. If you need me withdraw the word 'bloody', I will do so, but the sentiment is clear.

This government has not taken this crisis seriously. It has been everybody else's responsibility except the Prime Minister's. He won't take responsibility to lead the nation and he won't even take responsibility to call out the fringe dwellers within his own party. I wonder why? Because he has a one-seat majority, he can't afford to pull up these dangerous fools in his own coalition. But the result is that Australian lives are threatened and, through his silence, the Prime Minister undermines the work of nurses, doctors, aged-care workers, cleaners and factory workers. His silence exposes them unnecessarily to this deadly virus.

To the Prime Minister the Greens say that protecting the lives of Australians from both COVID and climate collapse is far more important than reinforcing those dangerous and deadly world views through the parliament and the Prime Minister's silence. They should be expelled from his party and the Prime Minister should immediately call them out and distance himself from them. The lives and the safety of Australians depend upon it.