Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, just to clarify the accusations by the government senators in this debate today that it's us on this side who are out campaigning against the rollout of the vaccine, there couldn't be anything further from the truth. They sit with colleagues on the backbench here in this chamber who have gone out and campaigned against the vaccine. Their own backbench in the other House have been out campaigning against the vaccine. So don't come into this chamber lecturing us. We have been out promoting, very strongly, the rollout of the vaccine. In fact, it was their own Liberal state minister in Tasmania, the Minister for Health, Jeremy Rockliff, who said today that the Tasmanian borders will not open until there is full vaccination, including of children. That's what he said.

What have we heard in this chamber today, particularly about First Nations children in western New South Wales? Forty per cent of our First Nations children have not been vaccinated. We know they're the largest cohort of young people in this country contracting COVID-19, the delta variant, but could any minister give us any figures when we asked today? No, they couldn't. After three strikes in softball, you're out. After three strikes of breaking the law in some states in the US, you go to jail. We have a minister here who is responsible for youth, and she failed on three occasions. After strike 3, she should be out. Not only should she be off the frontbench; so too should Senator Colbeck, representing the Minister for Health and Aged Care. In any other time, the Prime Minister of the day would have sacked the minister for health for a failing such as being unable to roll out a vaccine in a timely manner.

It really gets my goat when I listen to the people on that side of the chamber. They're almost bragging about the number of vaccines that are rolling out now. I'm sorry to allude to this, but the fact is that you're way behind the times. Then we have the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services, representing the minister for health, coming in here and saying, 'We're still learning about what the vaccine's going to do to young people.' I have no confidence whatsoever in that minister or in Scott Morrison. We know that, internationally, COVID-19 hit the United States and Europe before it came here. Did we learn anything from that? No, we didn't. This Prime Minister was so cocky that he didn't even go out and do his first job, which was to secure enough vaccine to keep safe every Australian in this country. Now they're telling us, 'We're still waiting to learn.'

You need to have a plan. I have children. I have grandchildren. So does almost everyone else in this chamber, and I truly believe that everyone in this chamber cares about rolling out this vaccine in a timely way. But we've had a crisis that the Prime Minister has not been able to address. He's had the job of ensuring the health of all Australians, and here we are today, with not one minister in this chamber able to reassure us and the Australian people that they have a plan to address the crisis that is hitting young people in this country. The delta variant is targeting our young people, and we've got a Prime Minister who is not addressing that most recent crisis. He's failed to protect the health of all Australians. He's failed to build the appropriate quarantine facilities that we need in this country. And we have government senators coming in here with—I have to say—quite a lacklustre performance of trying to defend their government for the failings that they have had. I know—as my colleagues do—from the calls and emails I'm getting to my office, that, for every death that has occurred in this country under the Prime Minister's watch, the government will be judged, and they will be judged very harshly, along with the Prime Minister of the day— (Time expired)

Question agreed to.