Kristina Keneally (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister representing the Minister for Health (Senator Colbeck) to questions without notice asked today by Senator Gallagher and Senator Keneally.

As we stand here today, three states are facing COVID outbreaks—community transmission of COVID. Just weeks ago we had no community transmission of COVID in Australia. That was the good news supplied just weeks ago. But, as we stand here in the Senate today, outbreaks from hotel quarantine are now leading to potential lockdowns in New South Wales and significant restrictions are in place, and three cases of community transmission have been reported this morning in Queensland. And, of course, we saw the outbreak earlier in Victoria.

Whose responsibility is quarantine? Under the Constitution, it is the federal government—the Morrison government. Yet, here we are, some 16 months into this pandemic, and we still do not have fit-for-purpose quarantine facilities in Australia.

An opposition senator: Shame!

It is a shame. In New South Wales we have 40 cases of community transmission. This is a highly contagious COVID variant. There are significant challenges going on for the people of New South Wales right now from an airport driver who was unvaccinated. Whose responsibility is vaccination supply? It's the federal government's—the Morrison government's. These COVID outbreaks sit squarely at the feet of the Commonwealth government—the Morrison government. It is failing to supply vaccines and failing to deliver fit-for-purpose quarantine.

Let us remember what the Morrison government promised as their targets. They promised that all Australians would be fully vaccinated by October. That won't happen. They promised that four million Australians would be vaccinated by the end of March. That did not happen. They promised that all of category 1a would be vaccinated by Easter. That did not happen. Who is in 1a? They are the frontline healthcare workers, border and quarantine workers, people living and working in aged-care and disability settings. They have not been vaccinated yet. The Morrison government promised that six million Australians would be vaccinated by 10 May. That did not happen.

What has happened instead? We now have no targets and no promises; we have horizons. And we don't just have one horizon—oh, no. The document that the Minister for Senior Australians and Aged Care Services and the Minister representing the Minister for Health tried to keep secret, but finally had to table, has three horizons for each state and territory.

Senator Sheldon interjecting—

Senator Sheldon is chuckling, because it is laughable, isn't it? There are three horizons for each state and territory and three horizons for the national government. There are 27 horizons! A horizon, by definition, is a thing you never meet. It's a thing you never get to. It's always out there ahead of you. We don't just have one horizon; we have 27 horizons in this Morrison government's supposed vaccine strategy. We are not going to meet any of them, because you don't meet a horizon; you never get to it. I mean, come on: there are COVID vaccination 'allocation horizons'.

What did we hear from the minister today?

We heard that only some 11,000 workers in aged care in New South Wales have been fully vaccinated. That's about 10 per cent of the aged-care worker population in New South Wales—10 per cent! We have a COVID outbreak going on in Sydney, and we have some 90 per cent of aged-care workers in New South Wales not vaccinated.

The Morrison government had two jobs: fit-for-purpose quarantine and rollout of a vaccine. They are failing at both, and they are leaving Australians behind.

Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think what Australians expect from their government during a global pandemic is that they keep them alive. That is what we are trying to do. We are trying to make sure that Australians are kept safe and alive. That's what all our efforts are focused on. That's why we went through all the costs last year of closing our international borders and, for a time, shutting down our economy. It was to keep Australians alive. And because the opposition has nothing to say on that matter, they are going for all these other issues. But it is important to come back to the fact that this year not one Australian here in Australia has died from coronavirus—not one person. Overseas, more than two million people have died this year from coronavirus. The equivalent of the whole town of Brisbane has, unfortunately, died as a result of this global pandemic. It is a terrible, shocking and tragic thing that has happened to the world. But here in this country, with the cooperation of Australians, by working together with state governments, Australians have largely been kept alive. We are very, very lucky.

The opposition would like to compare us to Mars or somewhere, where there's no risk. They'd like us to be like an outer planet where there's no coronavirus—absolutely no risk at all. Well, that world doesn't exist here. We have to accept risk. We have to get Australians back home—which the opposition was calling for last year; they wanted more Australians to come home. We have to get them home, and when they come home from countries that have lots of coronavirus there are risks. Yes, there have been outbreaks from hotel quarantine. But that is to be expected in a risky environment. The more than 99 per cent of people who have gone through hotel quarantine have not led to any community transmission, because hotel quarantine has worked pretty well. It's not perfect. No system is perfect. Even if everybody were vaccinated, guess what? Vaccines are not perfect. You can still contract or transmit the coronavirus after getting a vaccine.

We want to make sure we get Australia vaccinated as fast as possible, but we were right to be cautious with our vaccine rollout, as we have seen with the problems experienced with the AstraZeneca vaccine. The opposition have not been mature about this issue. At every point they have operated like a panicked child—with every bad-news story that has come about. At the start of the year the Leader of the Opposition, Anthony Albanese, was wanting us to vaccinate people as soon as possible, even before our own health authorities had gone through the proper assessments of the vaccines. If we'd adopted that approach, we probably would have ended up with more Australians dying from the AstraZeneca vaccine than we have. Two Australians have died, linked to the AstraZeneca vaccine. More have died in Australia this year from the vaccine rollout than from coronavirus. It's a tragic thing. Again, the vaccine has risks. Life has risks. It was right and proper for us to make sure we assessed those risks proportionate to the risks we face from coronavirus and to be cautious about the rollout.

When issues with AstraZeneca were first exposed a few months ago I called for a pause so that we could look at it, and I was pilloried by the opposition. They would come into Senate estimates and say, 'What a crazy person that Senator Canavan is!' Well, now we know that there are real risks and that we were right to look very closely at those risks. But, again, the opposition, acting like a child, jumps up and down, panics and runs into the corner, rather than dealing with the facts of life. A fact of life is that there are risks. Our job, as a sensible, mature, adult government, is to manage those risks as reasonably as we can, to get them as low as we can. But they'll never disappear.

We have to be upfront with the Australian people about the risks we face in a world where there is a global pandemic. But, on every score, on every measure, we have kept Australians safe. We have made sure that many more people have stayed alive in Australia than has been the case in other countries over the past year. That is a great success. I'm confident, after the cooperation we have seen from Australians over the last year, that we will receive the same type of cooperation as we get more vaccine doses, as the Pfizer and Moderna doses come in later this year. We will get those vaccination rates. We will get out of this. We will rebuild our country. We will come out of this safer and stronger than we were before. But we'll only do that if we stop panicking, stop being panic merchants, as the opposition constantly are when they enter this debate. (Time expired)

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That last contribution says so much about what's wrong with the Morrison government. You've got a government that is run by an advertising executive, and Senator Canavan, who represents the most reasonable-sounding of the maddest of the coalition backbench, is the voice in the back of their head: 'Don't worry about it. It's not a race. Vaccines could be dangerous.' That's what's wrong with this government.

As we speak today, the situation in New South Wales—far from being a panic—appears to be moving quickly, and the government in New South Wales is working its way through its response. There are multiple locations, and it's fair to say that New South Wales is in a more perilous position than it has been for many, many months. Indeed, the New South Wales parliament appears to have had a spread inside its own building. I want to commend two MPs in that place who have displayed remarkable leadership. Firstly, the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Minns, immediately upon learning about this put the interests of the state before his own political interests and postponed his budget reply speech. Mr Minns has recently taken over the leadership of the New South Wales Labor Party, and it could reasonably have been expected that that opportunity to speak to the people of New South Wales would have been a significant milestone for him. But, without question, he put the interests of other people before his own political interests. I also want to commend the minister for agriculture in New South Wales, Mr Marshall, who has contracted the coronavirus himself and issued a very sensible statement. I wish him well, an important part of the process when political leaders contract the disease.

But I tell you what. While I don't want to pre-empt any of the decisions of the New South Wales government, and they will have to make some difficult decisions in the days ahead, the Premier of New South Wales has been very clear this week about the problem. She has pointed the finger directly at the Morrison government. Senator Canavan might think that the bungled vaccine rollout is not a problem, but Ms Berejiklian knows that just over three per cent of New South Wales residents are fully vaccinated, that the level of supply is nowhere near the level of demand and that New South Wales is a global laggard, just like the rest of Australia, because Mr Morrison couldn't run a bath. He can't manage his way through this problem. The country had the opportunity to seize this issue and actually approach a public health issue with the seriousness it deserved. Mr Morrison has entirely bungled the vaccine rollout. We couldn't be in a worse position than Mr Morrison has put Australia in. We are 100th in the queue. Other countries overseas with similar health systems—and even the Americans, whose health system is in a very poor state—are in the high 30s and mid-40s in terms of the amount of their populations vaccinated. And guess what? They'll be opening up. There will be opportunities for their citizens and their businesses because they've got the vaccine rollout right. Mr Morrison has bungled it for every Australian.

Then we turn to hotel quarantine—absolutely criticised by anybody who knows anything about quarantine. What have we had? Dozens of outbreaks from hotel quarantine. Fifteen months—Mr Morrison has had 15 months to prepare purpose-built quarantine facilities across Australia, and what has Mr Morrison achieved? Precisely nothing.

He has squandered the opportunity to fix vaccines and to fix quarantine, and he has left Australia in a vulnerable place, where we are less safe, where growth will be held back and Australia will be held back because of his failures and his incapacity to put the national interest ahead of his own narrow political interest.

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Seriously, I don't know where you guys live, because it's certainly not in Australia with the rest of us. It's just extraordinary, this constant talking-down that we see of Australia's efforts around the entire COVID pandemic. We know that you don't understand the basic economics of the pandemic and all the programs we put in place to ensure Australians were able to stay connected to their employers. We've now got less unemployment than we had pre the pandemic. And that was all at a time when, over there, those naysayers were all, 'Don't end JobKeeper; the economy's going to fall off the cliff.' Guess what? It keeps getting better. And that's because of the leadership of the Morrison government, with Treasurer Josh Frydenberg.

When we come to the vaccine rollout, the 20/20 'hindsight vision' displayed by those opposite is breathtaking. I'm just so impressed by how you are all, apparently, expert epidemiologists and knew clearly before the actual experts what was going to happen with regard to the vaccines! In fact, in last March who would have thought we'd have a vaccine by this stage? This has been the most incredible rollout—and the efforts by science and research to ensure that we could move towards a vaccine at all. In Australia we have four vaccines lined up and, by the time we get to October, there will be two million doses per week of the Pfizer.

I had my first Pfizer jab, in New South Wales—because Gladys Berejiklian continues to demonstrate a gold standard in every single way. I am not in the over-50 category. I would like that on the record! Maybe I should say it again: I qualified for the Pfizer, and the Pfizer was for ages 40 to 49. You don't feel smug about it anymore now that it goes up to 59, but back then in New South Wales it was the 40- to 49-year-olds who were entitled to the Pfizer. I've had the first jab and I'm looking forward to my second jab next week. That would make me just one of 140,000 Australians who received a dose of the vaccine, because that's how many received it yesterday. And, if today we see another 140,000 Australians receive a dose of the vaccine, that will put us at seven million vaccine doses that have been delivered.

We hear from over there so much misinformation, and it is absolutely so dangerous to continue to propagate these lies and this deceit to the Australian people. It is creating more fear and uncertainty, and you should be ashamed. The reality is that the vaccine is not available to under-16s. So, when we talk about the percentage of the population, let's remove the under-16s, shall we? And most states are making it available to only the over-50s. So we need to remove everyone under 16. Except in New South Wales and, I think, a couple of other places that are allowing those in their 40s—

Honourable Senator:

An honourable senator interjecting—

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

South Australia. Have a nice glass of water with it, after you've had your vaccine—not that anyone drinks water from South Australian taps, and I can say that as an old Adelaide girl. You have your vaccine—seven million doses. In the last seven days we've had nearly 800,000 doses given. Like every other country in the world, vaccine rollouts have had a growth period. They're a bit slow when they start out, but they pick up the pace exponentially. In fact, to go from four million to five million doses took just nine days, and to go from five million to six million doses took 10 days, but that did include a public holiday. So maybe we can look at nine being the standard for the last two weeks for every million doses.

But we don't want to talk about actual figures in reality because that would mean those opposite need to acknowledge and accept that two-thirds—for those of you who are not good at maths, because we know what happens any time you guys get near the budget, that's 66 per cent—of all Australians over 70 are protected. Almost half—and, in fact, by today it looks like it will be half—of all Australians over 50 are protected.

We also hear scare campaigns saying, 'They haven't had their second dose.' There's eighty per cent protection after a single dose. Stop your smear and your disinformation campaign and stop scaring Australians. (Time expired)

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is really interesting. Both Senator Canavan and Senator Hughes have the Monty Python defence—always look on the bright side of life. The reality is the bright side of life is seeing the Australian community being economically crucified because the government has not got its act together. We have seen the lockdowns due to the quarantine failures in New South Wales, Victoria and Queensland. That's where responsibility should be taken by this government, saying, 'We are going to rectify this.' They should be coming in here, saying, 'We're going to fix these problems,' not saying how they're going to turn around and avoid taking responsibility for what has been going on in this country right now.

Unless they have been living under a rock, everyone in Australia knows that the Morrison government has botched the vaccine rollout. We have had one of the slowest vaccine rollouts of any developed country in the world. The Prime Minister says it's not a race. That's because it's a race we are losing because of his lack of desire to make sure we get the right outcomes. He took time off to go sightseeing in Cornwall, enjoying the benefits of a country which has actually vaccinated its citizens. The story is very different when it comes to residents in my state of New South Wales. What Australians don't know is just how badly the Morrison and Berejiklian governments have botched hotel quarantine in New South Wales. While the state government has introduced a hotel quarantine process for international arrivals, I have been informed today by multiple whistleblowers working in the airport quarantine system that the quarantine process for crew from international passenger or freight flights is a sham. It's a complete and utter sham.

I have been told directly by three different whistleblowers working in this process that buses which are used to transport international arrivals to hotel quarantine are cleaned comprehensively by cleaners in full PPE and between every single trip—a tick for that. That is best practice. The Australian Defence Force have been brought in to load luggage onto these buses in a COVID-safe manner—a tick for that. That's best practice as well. But, for international crew on passenger or freight flights, none of these systems are in place—none. The vehicles used to transport crew from the airport to the hotel are not cleaned between trips. In actual fact, you could go out to Sydney airport and see there's a cone between the passenger buses and the international flight crew buses. One gets cleaned; the other doesn't. Until Friday last week, those same people moving international crews also weren't wearing masks. So if a crew member with COVID sits in one of these minivans then every other crew member who sits in that vehicle for the rest of the day—or even days later—including the driver, is stepping into a viral bomb. And the Australian Defence Force isn't used to load bags into these vehicles. The drivers are forced to do it themselves, without PPE, except maybe a face mask—and that's only since last Friday. And it's one of these drivers who are driving vehicles that are not cleaned and who have to touch all the luggage themselves who has set off the cluster which is now spreading like wildfire across Sydney.

It isn't the first time. The Northern Beaches cluster just before Christmas was also started by one of those drivers who had not got the processes in place. So this government is failing to economically protect New South Wales and the rest of this country. How has the federal government allowed two entirely different COVID safety procedures to be put in at Sydney airport? There's one for big buses—maybe that's why they thought it was necessary—but none for any other buses, even though they're still transporting international crew around and exposing Australian crews and the Australian community. Once those drivers are infected, as we've seen with the New South Wales cluster, people are infected right across the community. The quarantine and transport hub at Sydney airport needs to be fixed. It needs to be rectified. And we need to make sure that we hold this government to account for what it's doing—wrecking our economy and exposing our people to an epidemic. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.