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

I love the tone of reasonableness that is being adopted by senators from the other side making a contribution as if there is not chaos out there and as if they've done their job in a decent and orderly way, because that is absolutely not the case. We have a Prime Minister who in answering questions said: 'I'm the minister who established no jab, no play.' He is the man who talks tough, who's leading the nation in making sure we are going to get mandatory vaccine rollout and then he changed his mind. We have all these excuses trotted out every time a member of the opposition stands to speak. I note the answers to the questions that were asked by Labor senators. I think it reveals a complete lack of morals, failure to admit responsibility and complete abdication of any national leadership on a matter of great importance.

The fact is that you are 20 times more likely to spread COVID if you are unvaccinated. From all the words spoken here today if that one message gets through and helps people make the decision to protect themselves and their family that will be a good thing that comes out of our debate at this point in time. At a time when the country is fighting a global pandemic the Liberals and Nationals are at war with their own government, and Prime Minister Morrison is facing revolt from within. People in his own government have basically indicated that they plan to join up with Pauline. They're not standing with their colleagues and they're not standing with the Prime Minister. They're not following him, because they figured out that he is not worth following. They're chasing One Nation votes that depend on their agenda to try to get themselves a few more votes at the next election. The actions of Senators Rennick and Antic, despite all their protestations and equivocations, give support to antivaxxers—that their views have support and that their views have merit.

Let me be very clear: vaccines do save lives, they reduce the risk of infection and they help prevent serious cases and death in most cases. That, frankly, is the overwhelming medical consensus, supported by the overwhelming majority of medical practitioners, and any attempt to portray it as a conspiracy or to allow conspiracies to stand damages public confidence in the rollout and harms our efforts to control the virus and keep our communities safe. It's a disgrace that those who sit in this chamber and who have the privilege of the confidence of the Australian people would seek to politicise a matter of life and death.

The vaccine in Australia was a strollout, not a rollout, and if Mr Morrison had done his day job in July 2020 and taken on the Pfizer doses that he was offered, the great state of New South Wales would have been getting that vaccine in March and we wouldn't even have had a lockdown. Businesses that have collapsed would still be going. That's the kind of failure of leadership that is the hallmark of Mr Morrison. And right now, with regard to this matter of life and death, Senators Rennick and Antic are playing politics. Vaccines and sensible public health measures shouldn't be the new front for whatever culture wars people on the far Right of politics want to start.

As Senator Lambie pointed out earlier today in this chamber, there are plenty of requirements that Australians accept to enable them to work in a safe workplace. You need to be up to date with your vaccinations to be a medical practitioner, you need working-with-children certification to work in your local preschool and you need a forklift licence to drive a forklift. These are measures that ensure that workplaces and consumers are safe and that our vaccination rates are as high as possible. Words matter. Messaging matters. The Prime Minister is aware of marketing. But the words of those opposite and the failure of their colleagues to properly call out misinformation and deal with the fear and vilification that's now a matter of public record only emboldens antivaxxer extremists and conspiracy theorists. That makes us all poorer, and it makes our recovery from COVID, both physically and economically, much more subject to the vagaries of uncertainty. Violent protests in Melbourne, public violence displayed against effigies and the continuing ratcheting-up of political tension is aided in part by members of the coalition who, by visiting and speaking at these rallies, give political status and currency to issues and people who do not deserve that status. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.