Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Distrust and division: these are the two words defining the Morrison government today—two goals of a government that has nothing else to offer the Australian people. When you step back and look at how our nation is holding it together right now, it is difficult to comprehend exactly how we got here. We should be on the cusp of great things right now. We should be about to rebuild our economy and our society after two incredibly difficult years, during which the overwhelming majority of Australians pulled together. They did the right thing for themselves and their families and they understood that we are stronger when we work together as a community. We should be united in pride about the sacrifices that Australians made to keep each other safe. We should be in awe of the scientists who delivered vaccines, despite all the odds. We should be determined right now to lift up everyone who fell behind in the last two years.

As we head into a new year, we should be full of hope about what we can achieve in the future and be prepared for any setbacks that might come along the way. Instead, we are mired in distrust and division that is overseen by the highest elected officeholder in the land, our own Prime Minister; that has been actively fermented by the highest officeholder in the land; and that has been fanned by a prime minister who, everyone knows, is playing two sides of a very dangerous game. He is agreeing to condemn, under questioning, anti-democratic protesters threatening violence and threatening our democratic process in Melbourne. But, at the same time, he is using their exact language. He is using the exact language of these violent protesters over and over again, mimicking their lines that 'it's time for a government to get out of our lives'. This is a desperate and dangerous game. It is unbecoming of our Prime Minister. It undermines our democracy, it is a complete failure of leadership and it squanders the goodwill and the support Australians have been showing each other through these two years of crisis. It is a disgrace. It is a dog-whistling, vote-grubbing, desperate disgrace, and it is a hypocritical disgrace.

Imagine if, instead of all of this, our Prime Minister had just explained, over the last two years, that we needed restrictions in place while there were no vaccines to keep us safe. Imagine if we'd had a prime minister who had told the truth to the people—that, until he rolled out the vaccines, we would need rolling lockdowns. Imagine if we'd had a prime minister who had actively pursued those vaccines and bought them when they were available, so that people hadn't had to go through this second incredibly tough year. Imagine if, instead of Prime Minister Morrison, we had a national leader who could actually bring people together. The distrust and division that this Prime Minister and members of his government are actively courting is being piled onto a massive trust deficit that already exists and is overseen by our Prime Minister—a prime minister who is, at best, loose with the truth, a prime minister who has been caught out lying again and again, a prime minister who is always searching for the next line to get through his next difficult day. He bends with the breeze. He distracts and diverts and spins and spins, hoping no-one will know which way is up. He is a prime minister who moves to his next message just as fast as he can get from one press conference to the next, and he does all of this because he has absolutely no plan for our country.