Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take notice of answers given by the Minister for Foreign Affairs (Senator Payne), the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services (Senator Colbeck) and the Minister for Finance (Senator Birmingham) to questions without notice asked by Senators Keneally, McAllister, Watt and Sheldon relating to COVID-19.

The Prime Minister was New South Wales Premier Berejiklian's biggest cheerleader when she refused to send Bondi into lockdown. As we stand here today, the people of Western Sydney, indeed of all of New South Wales, of Victoria, of Canberra and even of New Zealand are being drawn into Mr Morrison's COVID quagmire. Their frustration is palpable. We are 18 months into this pandemic. It shouldn't be this way, but the situation in Australia is worse than ever. In Sydney people have endured eight weeks of lockdown: eight long weeks of isolation from friends and family, eight long weeks of children trying to be schooled at home. For many it's been eight weeks of heartbreaking loneliness, for what? We get more bad news every day. It's no longer just the rising case numbers; there's a death toll now too, and it stands at 74. The Prime Minister in his urging to end the lockdowns openly admits that the death toll will rise. Despite all the sacrifices, despite all the hardship, the numbers keep ratcheting up and up. There doesn't appear to be an end in sight. It is a race to protect as many Australians as possible with the vaccine before this outbreak is totally out of control. But it's a chaotic race and it's too little, too late from Mr Morrison.

The statistics here will make you cry. One in 250 people in the Blacktown LGA is positive for COVID. One in 125 people in the Cumberland LGA is COVID positive. These are Western Sydney people who are COVID positive. We've only got 23 per cent of the Australian population fully vaccinated, and priority groups are still waiting. Eight per cent of the western New South Wales Indigenous community over the age of 16 is fully vaccinated—only eight per cent. There's no plan to vaccinate the 12- to 15-year-olds. The TGA has approved the Moderna vaccine, but Mr Morrison was only able to secure 10 million doses for 2021, with the majority not arriving for months. Whose responsibility is vaccine supply? It's the federal government's, the Morrison government's. It's Mr Morrison's failure to supply vaccines and his failure to deliver fit-for-purpose quarantine that have resulted in this mess. Mr Morrison promised that all Australians would be fully vaccinated by October: fail. He promised that four million Australians would be vaccinated by the end of March: fail. He promised that all quarantine workers, frontline healthcare workers, aged- and disability-care staff and residents would be vaccinated by Easter: fail. He promised six million Australians would be vaccinated by 10 May: fail. Now he's making promises about families gathering around the table for Christmas lunch. Maybe he ought to understand that Vinnies in Western Sydney are reporting that people are coming into their shops to sell their furniture, their dining room tables, for food. These are people who are going to be lucky to have furniture by Christmas. Addison Road, another frontline service, says that 50 per cent of their food-aid recipients are new to food aid, because of jobs lost, a loss of livelihood, mounting debts, reduced hours and having to escape violent households during this COVID lockdown. They say they were providing groceries to two people per week before the pandemic. Now they've reached 8,000.

Mr Morrison has failed to reach every vaccine target he's ever set. People, particularly in Western Sydney, are being told to get a vaccine. That would be great, except, over in the other place, the government has told the member for Greenway that vaccine hubs in Western Sydney are unnecessary. I've got news for the government: pharmacists in some parts of Western Sydney are tearing their hair out because they can't get access to enough vaccine. GPs in Western Sydney are hesitant to give AstraZeneca to young people. They're hesitant to receive the indemnity and hesitant to give that advice. Pharmacists are telling us that they're running through their two-week supply in two days. This is not a lightning response. This is not agile. This is failure, and it is the people of Western Sydney and the people of Australia who are being left behind by this 'too little, too late' Prime Minister. (Time expired)