House debates

Monday, 30 November 2020

Private Members' Business

COVID-19: Victoria

7:08 pm

Photo of Josh BurnsJosh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Reading this motion, I thought: 'Surely not? Surely this motion is going to be withdrawn now that Victoria is in the state in which it is.' But perhaps the only conclusion I can draw about a motion talking about a Victorian lockdown that doesn't exist anymore is that it was sent in via Malcolm Turnbull's NBN! That could be the only reason why it took so long to get to this place and finally be debated. But, if this pandemic has taught us anything, it is that you don't play politics with a pandemic. You don't play politics with a pandemic because, if you do, it looks like it does in the United States, where the political class, the political leadership, is undermining health efforts, undermining the experts, undermining the efforts of those people trying to deal with this pandemic and instead we are seeing the people of the United States resist the health measures that are designed to keep them safe.

Don't play politics with a pandemic––which is exactly what this government has done. This government, I'm sure, are proud of their efforts over that time, picking on Labor states and Labor premiers. It worked really well in the Northern Territory, it worked really well in the ACT, and it worked well in Queensland after their relentless attacks on Labor premiers. That went really well. Playing politics with a pandemic is really great stuff and I encourage you, as a federal government, to do that to Victoria, because I can tell you one thing, and that is that Victorians are absolutely sick of it. They are absolutely sick of the Prime Minister lecturing Victoria about contact tracing, after his excuse for contact tracing was to develop an app that they are only announcing today that they are starting from scratch.

Victorians are absolutely sick of a Prime Minister blaming Victorian Labor for the state of the economy in Victoria, when this government is the one which, during stage 4 lockdown, decided that instead of supporting Victorian businesses, what are they going to do? They are going to reduce the JobKeeper supplement from $1,500 to $1,200.

We couldn't even have family over for dinner. Child care was shut down unless you were a permitted worker. We were tackling a pandemic. We were at 725 cases on 5 August, a comparable state to the United Kingdom, who are now tracking 20,000 cases. France has 50,000 cases a day. But instead, the Victorians and the Victorian people decided no, that is not what we're going to do. We are going to listen to the health advice, we are going to respect the experts, we are going to respect the scientists and we are going to respect the politicians who are trying to lead us through this Victorian pandemic and lead us out of the second wave.

Instead, at that very moment of need, at the very moment when Victorians needed their federal government, when Victorians needed support from those opposite, what did we get? A $300 cut, a cut of support to businesses, to families, to mums and dads. And it hurt. Thankfully, Victoria is now in a place where we are not in lockdown, we are not in a position where we are counting hundreds of cases a day, and we are not in a position where our hospitals are being overrun. It is because of the efforts of Victorians to listen to the health advice, to listen to the health experts, to listen to the Premier of Victoria, who each and every day admitted mistakes. It wasn't perfect. He fronted up every day––120 press conferences in a row.

How many times has the Prime Minister stood up and said, 'You know what, that contact tracing app that I said was our ticket to freedom and our ticket out of lockdown'––how many times has the Prime Minister stood up and taken a press conference about that? How many times has the Prime Minister stood up and said, 'That JobKeeper cut, the JobSeeker cut that I made during the middle of stage 4 lockdown, that was my fault, I apologise, and here is how we will fix it.' Not once.

So we won't be lectured to by these people opposite, constantly undermining the health efforts, constantly undermining the people who were trying to get Victoria through a pandemic, constantly undermining the efforts of scientists and experts to keep people safe. Instead they have got conspiracy theorists and they are playing political games only with Labor premiers. Victorians are sick of it. I know this, we know this in Victoria, but I would encourage those opposite, if you want to keep playing your petty political games, then go for it and you will face the repercussions at the next election. Victorians did something remarkable, no thanks to those opposite.

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