Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What a mess Australia is in. We have the very sad occurrence of New South Wales being in extensive lockdown because of the new delta strain of COVID. We've seen deaths in that state, and both in New South Wales and in Queensland we've seen the delta strain now affect much younger people. We've got absolutely appalling vaccination rates in this country. I think we're almost last of all the OECD countries, not that you'd know it when you listen to the government, particularly the Prime Minister.

The government had two jobs. One was hotel quarantine, and I think to date we're up to 27 leaks in hotel quarantine. That rests squarely with the Prime Minister of this country. The second job was rolling out the vaccines, and he's absolutely failed at that, despite him coming up with plan A and plan B, saying people will be vaccinated by Christmas and Australia will enter this fabulous new phase. None of that is true. We are languishing at the bottom of the queue, and it's costing Australian lives. The responsibility for what is happening in New South Wales and in Queensland right now lands at the feet of the Prime Minister, who failed to do those two jobs: vaccine rollout and hotel quarantine. There's now only the ACT and Tasmania that are free of COVID. Every other state has COVID, whether it's safely contained or in freefall like in New South Wales. The Prime Minister seriously has to admit that this is a race. He needs to step up and do the two jobs he was elected to do.