Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister had two jobs this year: a speedy rollout of COVID-19 vaccines and fixing quarantine. He's failed at both. Australia's vaccination rate is 35th out of the 38 OECD countries, and Australia has some of the highest vaccine hesitancy in the world because of the confused messaging over the AstraZeneca vaccine. Mr Morrison's absolute failure to secure vaccine doses has slowed the rollout to a crawl. He's given up setting vaccine targets because he misses every single target he sets. His government is just starting to bring pharmacies on board now. He should have done it months ago. He's starting to do it now with the rollout but months too late. We've seen 27 leaks from hotel quarantine, yet he refuses to step up and deliver fit-for-purpose quarantine facilities.

I will remind people: quarantine is a Commonwealth responsibility under the Constitution. The government's own hand picked adviser, Ms Jane Halton, told the government to develop a national quarantine system many months ago. But, instead of taking any action, the Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, handballed the problem back to the states. Mr Morrison and his government have attacked Labor states for their COVID restrictions, undermining efforts to stop the spread. But, when his Liberal mates in New South Wales went into lockdown, Mr Morrison suddenly decided that lockdowns were okay. Previously, though, he praised Ms Berejiklian for resisting a lockdown, and we all know that it was clearly needed. Adding to Mr Morrison's failure is his refusal to pull into line backbenchers like Mr Christensen, Senator Canavan and Senator Rennick, who seem to be given free rein— (Time expired)