Nita Green (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

[by video link] I'm very pleased to be joining the Senate tonight from Cairns. Unfortunately, though, we are facing our own delta outbreak. This week millions of Queenslanders from the Gold Coast, Brisbane and the Sunshine Coast are in lockdown in South-East Queensland. Many people in regional Queensland are also isolating at home, and in Cairns we have families across the region who are isolating at home and getting tested to prevent the spread of the delta strain. We have one confirmed case in Cairns as of today, a maritime pilot who tested positive even though he was fully vaccinated. As a result a number of local locations are now listed as exposure sites. It is very important for us to keep Cairns COVID-free. Ten per cent of the Cairns population is Indigenous. Cairns is also the gateway to the cape and the Torres Strait. An outbreak in those communities would be catastrophic. We simply cannot risk it. As senators are fully aware, Cairns and Far North Queensland have been absolutely smashed economically by COVID-19. An outbreak of the delta variant here in Far North Queensland would be the final straw for so many of our businesses.

Australians have been plunged into uncertainty and disruption because of a leaky quarantine system and a slow vaccine rollout. Scott Morrison had two jobs this year: a speedy and effective rollout of the vaccine and quarantine. He has failed at both, and now Far North Queenslanders are paying the price. Australia has seen 27 leaks from hotel quarantine, numerous lockdowns across the country, families separated from loved ones, and yet it's still not clear what it will take to get Scott Morrison to step up and get the job done. This is a Prime Minister who refuses to take responsibility. He said that it wasn't a race, but it has always been a race for people living in Far North Queensland and remote Far North Queensland, up through the cape and the Torres Strait. It has always been a race for us to get this right. But unfortunately in the Cairns region only 21 per cent of people aged over 15 have been fully vaccinated, and now we face the dire consequences of a delta strain outbreak in a community that cannot afford it.

Lockdowns have been made necessary by Scott Morrison's failure on vaccines and quarantine, and they are costing the economy around $300 million each day. The economy is bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars each week because Scott Morrison hasn't done his job. This is the price that Australian workers and small businesses are paying for his incompetence, and there are no businesses that know this better than those of the people living in Far North Queensland. They know this because throughout this pandemic they have been hit over and over again by the economic impacts of lockdowns. This is what local business leaders are saying, and they are pleading for more support from the Morrison government. Patricia O'Neill from the Cairns Chamber of Commerce said:

We're hearing from tourism operators they are losing between $3 million to $5 million a day. We have retailers reporting not a single transaction on their cash registers a day.

Darren Barber from Wolf Lane Distillery said, 'We know this uncertainty is damaging to business confidence.' The CEO of Skyrail, a tourism attraction here in Cairns, Ken Chapman, said, 'We are now in the depths of the situation we had 12 months ago, but 12 months ago we had JobKeeper.' Mark Olsen from TTNQ said this only yesterday: 'Without visitation or without wage support, we will lose businesses. We won't lose them for one week or two week; we will lose them forever.'

Unfortunately what we know about this government, about Scott Morrison, is he does not take responsibility. He doesn't take responsibility for his stuff-ups, and now Far North Queenslanders are paying the price. There is no economic support from the Morrison government for these businesses and these workers. There is no wage subsidy. There is no economic support. Although they are not in a lockdown right now, they are locked out of the revenue that tourists bring to our town. Far North Queenslanders have been through it all this year and all last year. They are on their knees and this government is letting them down. It is a disgrace. The government needs to step up and do better.