Patrick Gorman (Perth, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Like all Australians right now, I feel scared and anxious about what's happening in our country. It's okay to feel scared. I'm not afraid to say I'm worried about my community of Perth, including my family, my friends and my neighbours, and what the world will look like for my son and thousands of local kids once this is all over. But it's how we act on those feelings that matters most. We should act out of hope that we can get through this, not fear, which drives selfishness and meaningless panic. You don't need to be a vaccine scientist to know that you can turn fear, very effectively, into purpose and compassion. Australians are reminded afresh that we are citizens of the world and we are all in this together.

At the very heart of my electorate of Perth stands block C of Royal Perth Hospital, built in response to the Spanish flu. Today, Royal Perth Hospital is the heart of the testing for WA's response to the coronavirus. I want to say thank you to every health worker, from the catering staff, who work in the basement of that beast of a hospital, to the cleaners, who keep it clean and healthy, to every medical professional.

I also want to thank everyone for turning up to work to support their fellow Australians: community and personal service workers, some 7,996 in the Perth electorate; retail and sales staff, some 6,096 in the Perth electorate; and health workers, 3,183 in the Perth electorate. At the last census there were 3,147 hospitality workers, and I know that today there are not that many hospitality workers. It is a very tough day for those who work in some of those industries.

I want to acknowledge the leadership of the WA Premier, Mark McGowan, and the Deputy Premier, Roger Cook, and commend them for opening new coronavirus clinics in Armadale, Rockingham, Joondalup and Midland this week. They have been clear and compassionate in their communication and they have put the interests of Western Australians and, therefore, the interests of all Australians first. I am proud to be a Western Australian voice in this parliament, but I acknowledge that there are fewer Western Australian voices in this parliament this week because of the limitations that we have had to go through. I thank the whips and I thank everyone who has made arrangements so that we can have some voices, but this is not a parliament of all voices as it normally is.

Yesterday, before flying to Canberra, I got coffee from Miller and Baker, one of hundreds of great cafes in Perth. They only opened their business in December. I said to the owners that we would be passing some legislation to help their cash flow. Without missing a beat, they responded, 'What about our casual staff?' That sort of compassion is what we need from every employer in the country right now. Today, businesses across my electorate and across every electorate in the country are closing. For me, it is the Court Hotel, Picabar, the Inglewood Hotel and our local, the Rosemount, to name a few. But, unlike Blockbuster Video, they are not closed forever; they will reopen. But for these businesses and their staff these are going to be the longest months of their life.

Just a month ago, Perth was buzzing with the fringe festival. I am now being flooded by emails from people who are asking, 'What's next?', and even saying, 'I've lost my job but what can I do to help?' This is the most uncertain of times for so many people. I want particularly to mention those in the creative and performing arts. I got an email from Paul in Mt Lawley, who works in the arts industry. He said has been watching very closely, and the I Lost My Gig counter is now noting some $280 million of lost work—that is, 255,000 gig event cancellations and counting.

These are incredibly tough times but we need everyone in this parliament to do their job and to do it well. In that spirit, every Australian needs the Prime Minister to do well now. I want him and his team to be incredibly successful in battling this virus. Peoples' lives do rest on them making the right decision day after day after day. If we think about the lessons of our recent history of the global financial crisis, this parliament saw too much immature behaviour from too many members too often, and some of that carried on for too long, in my view. The government should reflect on the fortune they have to have someone like Anthony Albanese, the Leader of the Opposition, as the opposition leader at a time like this. He is a decent person and a true parliamentarian, someone who was Leader of the House during that global financial crisis and who has shown today that Labor and he have learnt those lessons. He is someone who knows that our work ultimately in this place is in the service of all Australians.

A friend said to me this morning—I will steal his quote and half-reference it—'We don't have a cure for this virus but we do have the medicine of kindness, compassion and hope.' I think that is a really smart way of summing up what we can and what we can't do right now. We have kindness and, in that spirit, I'd like to thank some of those who teach kindness at the earliest years, the early-childhood educators, who work just as hard and are in just as difficult a position as our teachers and teachers' assistants. We have compassion. We know that racism will never be a sustainable economic strategy. We have hope, because so many people in this place and, indeed, Australians, all 25 million of them, have at some time in their lives overcome great personal crisis and come out stronger the other side.

We are experiencing, as many have said, a health and an economic crisis. Sadly, natural disasters will not take a break while we battle the coronavirus. We have heard briefings that domestic violence will get worse, as will homelessness. As the Leader of the Opposition said, it is pretty hard to self-isolate if you're homeless. I note that the MAYOR of London has today coordinated with an international hotels group to provide homes for some 300 people in London. I think that was a very smart move and something that we should look at here in Australia. We think that globally there are thousands who cannot apply the social distancing and isolation that is required to contain this virus. My fear is that over time, over this year, we have a risk that this health and economic crisis becomes a democratic and international security crisis. We must maintain our belief in democracy. We must continue to practise democracy. If for just one day Australia sends a message to our neighbours across the world that democracy is optional, we will encourage a security crisis.

We've also seen warnings on cybersecurity with these rapidly changing work arrangements. These are serious warnings too. We need to keep our international institutions talking. It was the G20 that helped us through the global financial crisis. We now need the World Health Organization to be more successful than it has ever been in its history. When we return to a normal sitting schedule, I hope that some of the constructive tone of today remains. The members of this parliament must also come with a comprehensive plan for the recovery phase. We are going to be given a bit of time to think about that with some of our other duties being lightened. So it's important that we actually have that comprehensive plan in place on how we rebuild—to have thriving small businesses and return to a world full of joy, performing arts and culture, with a normal education system. We will have no excuse. The hard thinking and long-term planning must be done now. That involves new ideas, new ways of thinking and new ways of working together. We should do it, because that's the only way that we can rebuild a fairer and stronger community than the one we had before this horrible virus.

See this speech in context