Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Deception, incompetence, neglect—words that hollowly echo the real anguish and fear spreading through communities in regional New South Wales. The Prime Minister on so many occasions has spoken of 'the forgotten Australians', although he's never seen their faces, never caring to avail himself of the facts of their lived realities. The New South Wales Premier seems to know Manly and Rushcutters Bay well, but she leaves regional Australia to her self-absorbed deputy. The people of the communities of Walgett, Wilcannia, Dubbo, Coonabarabran, Gilgandra and Orange are now becoming victims of the COVID-19 virus, illustrating to all that they have always been victims of a government ill concerned with them.

Allow me to disabuse you of any notion that the National Party actually cares for regional communities. Wilcannia is without food. In Walgett, people self-isolate in tents. In Dubbo, close contacts are sleeping in cars. All of these communities have serious questions for the government. Those are not my words; they are very powerful words spoken from the heart of the community constructed in Coonabarabran in the last couple of days by a good friend of mine, Jack Ayoub, who is Labor's shining star in that region. He was our candidate in the last federal election for the seat of Parkes, which covers western New South Wales—for those who don't know it—from Dubbo as far out west as Dubbo is from Sydney, all the way out to Broken Hill, and as far north as up to Goodooga. He has lived in Coonabarabran all his life and he knows a thing or two about what's going on out there. They're his words, because they reflect the reality that is happening right now in New South Wales.

Wiradjuri man David Towney said to ABC News overnight:

All that little political bubble that was happening in Sydney ignored us. And now we're paying the consequences.

Barkindji man Michael Kennedy also told ABC News:

We were trying really hard then to put changes in place to keep our community safe … everything that we mentioned and every plan we had got thrown out the window—no one would listen to us.

'No-one would listen to us'—this is the truth of elders in these First Nations communities. This truth needs to be told, because we can see, day after day, in the dismissive attitude of the minister for health in New South Wales, Mr Hazzard, and in the dismissive attitude of the minister for health here in this place, Minister Hunt, and his representative in the Senate, Senator Colbeck, that they are just failing to see the reality of what's happening on the ground. They come in here, refuse to answer questions with any truth or integrity, and rely on speaking notes that are intended to obfuscate and to absolve them of responsibility for what is actually happening on the ground right now in my great state of New South Wales. Euahlayi man Bhiamie Williamson summed up this government's attitude in one sentence:

It is absolutely clear that we Aboriginal people are a priority group in political rhetoric only.

That is the truth about this government.

I've been speaking with GPs, nurse practitioners and other health professionals from across the western New South Wales region, and this is what they are telling me: the missions are overcrowded. They acknowledge the important presence of the RFDS, who are there to support them and are doing a good job, but they are totally inadequately supported. One of them said: 'This was so predictable and so preventable. Instead, the government is reactive only, and now it's costing lives.' That is the truth of what's going on in western New South Wales. One said, 'We could all see it coming, but no-one would listen.' When did Pfizer, which is so desperately needed by this community, come through? Only in recent weeks: 'About a month ago,' was their response.

Yesterday I took some notes from the contribution of Senator Colbeck, who, when asked questions about what was happening, talked about a plan that he got together as far back as 5 March 2020, and an Indigenous plan from 26 March 2020. Well, the plan failed. March 2020 is a pretty long time ago. They had plenty of time to get on with the job, but, instead of being resourceful like the people of regional and rural Australia, the government think they're doing us a favour when they just show up, sit here and tell lies to the Australian people about what they're doing.

Yesterday the minister spoke about 9 March as the day when Indigenous vaccine programs got off the ground. On 22 March, he talked about Wilcannia getting access to a vaccination clinic through Maari Ma. But a vaccination clinic that opened up in the shadow of the Prime Minister's appalling press conference on the night of 8 April, where he basically completely compromised any community confidence in AstraZeneca, is the reality into which this plan entered. As First Nations leaders from across western New South Wales are saying, there was no adequate listening by this government. They are deaf to the voices of leaders in First Nations communities who have been pleading to be heard for months so that what has now been unleashed could have been prevented. Yet here we are, with COVID spreading rapidly throughout western New South Wales.

People knew that when COVID got to Dubbo it was going to get to every part of western New South Wales. The reality is if you live in Brewarrina, Burke, Wilcannia, or even Broken Hill, it's a long drive to get to Dubbo, but there are some facilities you can only get in Dubbo. People who live within four hours of Dubbo will be driving there to get food. Once it hit Dubbo, it was always going to go everywhere, and we have a government that failed to act. The South Australian border being closed has forced even more people than usual to go to Dubbo, and that is where this disease is really being fed.

I know health professionals out there are very, very concerned about the dismissive way in which their voices are ignored. What the people of western New South Wales really don't need is a top-down health bureaucracy with rules that have been poorly disseminated from Miller Street in North Sydney by people with no concept of rural and remote life, who have given no concern to the insights and experience of regional medical staff, who care and whose knowledge and connection to community will always prevail in the face of a dysfunctional, disorganised and utterly aloof government.

I refer to a GP in Coonabarabran, Dr Iannuzzi, who's been practising in regional New South Wales for 25 years. I reckon he might know a thing or two about what needs to happen. He gave evidence to the upper house committee from the New South Wales state parliament that was going around. This is from a contribution he made, from the Sydney Morning Herald:

I can attest to the scandals and horror stories emerging from a state parliamentary inquiry into regional, country and remote health services: a teenager with an infected toenail dies of septic shock after being turned away three times from an emergency department; "tea ladies" check in on newborn babies because there are not enough nurses; doctors threaten to quit en masse because their working conditions are so dangerous.

They're his words, describing the reality of what it was like before COVID hit. That's the system that is now expected to cope with this COVID infection rate, growing at a massive rate. This is the system and infrastructure provided to the people by the National Party, in cahoots with this government of the day. A leader should deal in hope, not flummery and fiction. People of western New South Wales need more than what they're getting. They need Labor representatives and a Labor government. (Time expired)