Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Regional Tourism) Share this | Hansard source

This year started with so much promise because of the lightening-speed scientific endeavour that delivered us the promise of protection through vaccination. The success of public health intervention measures meant that Australians could look forward to a vastly superior 2021 than the previous year. It is true that the failings of the Morrison government to get Australia near the head of the queue on vaccine procurement was evident even in 2020; however, thanks to the successful public health interventions led by state governments it seemed like we bought a little more time to successfully deliver our rollout.

The commitment was there directly from the Prime Minister that Australians would be vaccinated and vaccinated soon. In fact, the Prime Minister pledged to Australians that some four million of us would be vaccinated by the end of March. That pledge included a further commitment. He promised that every Australian in the first priority group who wanted to be vaccinated would be by Easter. There was hope that our most vulnerable Australians would be protected and protected reasonably soon. The promise made by the Prime Minister stretched to the vaccination of six million Australians by 10 May. While the vaccination rollout in Australia even under this pledge was well behind the OECD, it still seemed as though we would reach higher levels of vaccination coverage within months.

We needed just two things to go right. We needed our government to deliver on just two responsibilities that fall directly at the feet of the Commonwealth government. We needed to keep COVID out through a successful quarantine system whilst we rolled out a successful vaccination program. It seemed doable. We thought this government and this Prime Minister would be able to walk and chew gum at the same time. It turns out that they can't do either on their own.

Last week, tragically, this nation experienced its highest daily COVID case number since the start of this pandemic, and we are nowhere near where we were supposed to be on our vaccine rollout under the Prime Minister's original plan and promise. We all agree that vaccination is our ticket out of this pandemic, so why on earth did the Prime Minister fail to secure deals to secure vaccines in a timely manner in 2020? Other nations seem capable of doing it. He claimed we were at the front of the queue. Now we find we are near the back of the pack when it comes to all comparisons with comparable nations. In fact, we are last in the developed world when it comes to having our population fully vaccinated. There are still people in the vulnerable priority categories yet to be fully vaccinated.

It's quite extraordinary really, and a far cry from the hopeful optimism we all felt in January, because the consequences of Mr Morrison's failure to do his job have a devastating impact on Australians. Many of us are in seemingly endless lockdown. Hundreds and hundreds of Australians are contracting COVID every day. Borders are closed. Businesses are struggling or collapsing. People are out of work and losing income. The stress and the strain is having a significant impact on the mental health and wellbeing of Australians, and it didn't need to be this way. We didn't need to be here, but here we are because Mr Scott Morrison couldn't do his job—just two jobs. Job No. 1 was a speedy, effective rollout of the vaccine: fail. Job No. 2 was to manage quarantine: fail. But, for this Prime Minister, every job is someone else's fault; every crisis is someone else's responsibility.

We are in the race of our lives—we always were—to get this done and to provide better protection and the hope of a better life. This was always a race, despite what the Prime Minister said. It's been a total dereliction of duty, because, as you know, he doesn't even hold a hose, and now Australians have been plunged into uncertainty and disruption because of the quarantine system and the slow vaccine rollout. Australians are crying out for leadership. They just want the job done. They want some hope. They want the promise of January 2021 delivered, and all we ever get is more spin. All the while our health is at risk, our economy is held hostage, families are being kept apart and children are stressed and missing out on school. Australians deserve better. Interestingly enough, the first of Mr Morrison's promises and commitments to Australia in early 2021, the 70 per cent target, would already have been reached.