Damian Drum (Nicholls, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's fantastic to have an opportunity to rise in this place and put on the record the situation we have found ourselves in, with so many Australians stranded overseas. We must also understand that so many of the restrictions have been put in place by the various states. Victoria simply hasn't allowed any overseas travellers to come back into Victoria. They have just said: 'We're in such a mess here with what we've done with hotel quarantine. We've made such a mess of it, we've botched it up so badly that we are not going to take any risks. We will simply make 'zero' the number of people that we are willing to bring back into Victoria from overseas.' That just puts all the responsibility on other states and other premiers. As has been said by the previous speaker, thank goodness Howard Springs in the Northern Territory has opened up to bring a few stranded Australians back in through that facility. It's not going to be until 7 December that the Victorian government is going to be in a position where they can bring stranded Australians back into Victoria.

The previous speaker was talking about how political leaders are prepared—he was talking about the Prime Minister. How on earth can he do that with a straight face—talk about political leaders that aren't prepared to accept responsibility? In Victoria, we've got a Labor premier who is totally in control of what's gone on in Victoria, except for one critical decision, and they can't quite work out who made that decision. The greatest load of rubbish that the people of Victoria have ever been asked to swallow is the fact that Daniel Andrews wasn't in control and he didn't put a Labor mate's private security business in control of hotel quarantine. Apparently he didn't do that, even though that security company is a big donor of the Labor Party. Apparently Daniel Andrews, whilst he's in control of every other issue to do with COVID-19, had nothing to do with this decision. It is simply unbelievable. It's a stretch too far. We really do need some political leaders in Victoria to stand up and accept responsibility for their decisions and the deaths that have followed from those decisions.

Like every member in this House, I have been inundated with people's heartbreaking stories of loved ones that are stranded overseas. Many people have been booked on various flights and, on the sheer commerciality of it, those airline companies have been very cold-hearted. Fancy ringing people two days before their flight's due to take off, after they've been booked for three or four weeks, and saying, 'Unless you're prepared to pay business class you're going to be bumped.' Just recently I heard from a young lady from Cobram in my electorate, Millie Cassidy. Her mother, Karen, and her father, Mark, were absolutely beside themselves because Millie kept getting bumped from her flights from Europe to Australia. Eventually we got Millie home. She's done her two weeks quarantine in Sydney, and now she's enjoying being back home with mum and dad. As some of the speakers have said, since September, 31,000 Australians have found their way home. From the time we asked Australians to reconsider whether they should be travelling, 432,000 Australians have found their way home.

A whole range of assistance measures have been put in place by DFAT, and some $60 million for a hardship program for those people who have been caught overseas, have needed to stay there and have needed a bit of assistance. But so many of these restrictions that have been put in place around COVID have been put in place by state premiers. We've had people miss funerals of loved ones—all the stories associated with COVID have been incredibly heartbreaking.

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