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

Here we are at the end of parliament for the year, and after eight years in government and three years under Prime Minister Morrison, what are we left with? A government in shambles. A government that is divided. A government that is coming apart at the seams. A government that can't keep its own people in line. A government that can't pass its own legislation. A government that Australians simply can't trust. A government that is led by a Prime Minister who can't seem to determine what is fact and what is fiction. A Prime Minister who says one thing one day, and something completely different the next. From Cobargo to Paris, our Prime Minister is known for being loose with the truth. That is his reputation. This is a government and a Prime Minister that the people of Australia cannot trust to deliver for them.

With Prime Minister Morrison, every problem is someone else's fault. Every crisis is someone's else's responsibility. Instead of action, what we get from this Prime Minister are excuses: 'It's not my job. It's a matter for the states. I don't hold a hose.' Whether it's bushfires or a global pandemic, Australians just can't trust this Prime Minister to lead. Australians couldn't trust him to roll out the vaccines. They couldn't even trust him to buy the vaccines in the first place. Australians cannot trust this Prime Minister, who said we were at the front of the queue and then said that it wasn't a race—a Prime Minister who said one thing one day and something else the next. Australians paid the price this year.

Australians cannot trust this Prime Minister to lead this country in a crisis, and they cannot trust this Prime Minister to lead the country at all. Australians can't even trust the Prime Minister to run his own government or his own party. This Prime Minister is distracted by division in his own ranks. We have members of parliament and senators crossing the floor, left and right. We are in a situation in this place today where the government is held hostage by One Nation and by the extremes of its own party room. We are in a situation today where we have a Prime Minister who is showing no leadership whatsoever to rein in the members of his own party and his own government who are spreading fear and misinformation about vaccines. He can't even shut down the misinformation of Senator Rennick.

This Prime Minister cannot keep his own party in line, so how can the people of Australia expect him to deliver for them? This is a Prime Minister who won't rein in people who are spreading misinformation and mistruth, even when their actions threaten to undermine the advice of the public health experts, even when they threaten the efforts of the millions of Australians who have gone out, done the right thing and got themselves vaccinated, and even when they put the health of Australians at risk. It is completely unacceptable and shameful.

Instead of providing leadership when we need it and instead of building on the values that saw us come together over the course of this pandemic, we have a Prime Minister seemingly happy to benefit from the division in our community. He is playing a dangerous game of doublespeak in a desperate scrounge for votes. It is a desperate ploy to distract the people of Australia from the fact that after eight years the government don't have a plan for the things that matter to Australians. They have no plan to deliver the things that matter.

The government have got no plan for the good secure jobs that people need. They have got no plan to grow wages—wage growth is the flattest on record. They have got no plan to fix our broken aged-care system and value our aged-care workers. They have got no plan to rebuild manufacturing and make more of what we need here. They have got no plan to act on climate change and bring green energy jobs to Australia. At a time when wages are going backwards and the cost of everything is going up, they have got no plan to make people's lives any better. They have got no plan to make it easier. They have got no plan to build a better and brighter future. This government can't even imagine that future, let alone deliver it.