Luke Gosling (Solomon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

When the member for Bowman was in here just before he reminded us all that on 6 July, which is quite some time ago now, the Prime Minister met with the premiers and the chief ministers. The premiers and chief ministers obviously needed caps so that they could manage the numbers, line up quarantine facilities and get a process going that could return stranded Australians in an orderly way. The point is that there was obviously a limit to how many people could be quarantined and processed.

Knowing all of that, the Prime Minister promised to have stranded Australians home by Christmas. He promised that. It was an ironclad promise. As we've heard from previous speakers, Jane Halton told the Prime Minister how to expand quarantine above and beyond the capacity that the states and territories were informing the Prime Minister of. He has been ignoring her advice. There were many opportunities the Prime Minister could have taken since Jane Halton made those recommendations. As the Prime Minister failed to act, the number of Australian stranded overseas continued to climb and the number of stranded Australians categorised as vulnerable also continued to climb. As a local member I've been working with many families who have their loved ones stranded overseas and I've been endeavouring to get them home.

It is clear that the Prime Minister, through his own intransigence, has failed to keep his promise. There were ways and means open to him and recommended to him. He has decided not to take that advice. As a result, thousands upon thousands of Australians, including thousands who are categorised as vulnerable, will still be stranded overseas during Christmas and the new year. The Prime Minister hasn't admitted that there were ways and means available to him to get more stranded Australians home. Instead, he picked blues with Labor premiers. That behaviour is unbecoming of a leader of a country. In a time when we needed cooperation in the federation the Prime Minister showed he was incapable of providing that leadership.

He made a promise and then didn't act in order to fulfil that promise to Australians. I think Australians were looking for not only some action from their Prime Minister but for the Prime Minister to leave to the side the excuses and the fighting and bickering with the state and territory premiers and chief ministers. Australians expect so much more than that. The federal government is responsible for our international borders and it simply took far too long for the Prime Minister. He was too interested in passing the buck on quarantine to the states, just like he did with the Ruby Princess and the deaths in aged care.

The House has heard many of the arguments as to why getting stranded Australians home has to be racked up as an absolute failure by the Prime Minister, but in the time remaining I want to say how proud I am of the Northern Territory with the role it has played in getting stranded Australians home. We've recently increased the number of stranded Aussies who will be coming home through the Howard Springs quarantine facility in Darwin. We're proud of that. We play an important strategic role for the country. We could do more with federal support. Let's see more stranded Aussies home by Christmas.

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