Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister had two jobs this year: get quarantine right and get the vaccine rollout right, and this budget fails to do either. Our press-hungry Prime Minister is continuing to bumble his ways through a botched vaccine rollout, which is doing the country no favours. On 7 January this year, the Prime Minister said, 'We hope by the end of March to have reached some 4 million population.' He later revised that comment on 25 January, when he said, 'That four million position will be something that is going to be achieved in early April.' We are now in late May, almost June, and we still have not hit that four million milestone.

You just cannot trust this Prime Minister. It's all announcement, no delivery. It's all headline, no headway. And he is being found out. His bad calls are coming thick and fast and his poor decision-making as Prime Minister is out in the open. He was wrong to leave Australian citizens behind in India, which is ravaged by COVID. That's not who we are. We have each other's backs. That's our history and our culture as a nation. Australians look after their mates and look after each other. We did that in Gallipoli, in Kokoda, in Saigon and on the Korean Peninsula. That's who we are—that's who Australians are. But that's not the style of this Prime Minister.

This Prime Minister thinks Australians will simply forget. It is his government that has systematically gutted the aged-care and disability sectors and failed to ensure that workers are paid properly for the incredibly important work they do. Aged-care workers are being paid less than somebody stacking shelves at the local supermarket. He thinks that Australians will forget that a young woman was allegedly raped in this parliament and that, months later, nothing of substance has been done. And his hand-picked so-called investigator is, this very day in the Senate, frustrating inquiries to get to the bottom of the matter. This Prime Minister thinks Australian women will forget that there are members of his cabinet and his party under intense scrutiny for their alleged treatment of women, and he thinks Australian women will forget that those MPs involved were not publicly disciplined but, instead, given paid leave—something those opposite have for so long denied to victims of family violence. And he is so wrong to assume he can simply wash his hands of all this responsibility and of this complete failure of moral leadership. He is the Prime Minister; the buck stops with him. His incompetence is on display.

The Liberals say that they are better economic managers. They say they are the ones who can be trusted with money; it's hardwired into their DNA. How, then, do we explain more than $1 billion—$1,000 million—being given over four years to a company to guard a few hundred asylum seekers on Nauru? How do we explain, if the Liberals are the better economic managers, that, in January 2021 alone, the Morrison government paid this company $37 million in one month to provide services for fewer than 150 asylum seekers on Nauru? That's more than $250,000 per person. We all know that those asylum seekers didn't get that money. How is that an efficient use of taxpayer money? What about this government's disastrous deal with Applus Wokman, the company handed a $121 million contract to support asylum seekers in PNG? They were boosting their profits by billing the Department of Home Affairs $75 an hour for local workers who they paid just $8 an hour. Imagine that! They tell the department it's $75 an hour for the workers, and they give the workers $8. What an outrage! It's embarrassing. It's making the Sydney airport fiasco, where they paid $30 million to a Liberal Party donor for a $3 million block of land, look like small beer. Our trillion-dollar Treasurer shouldn't even be allowed near a piggy bank, let alone a budget.

We all know that the Prime Minister is big on announcements but small on delivery. He boasted about strong unemployment figures released last week. What on earth is he talking about? New ABS figures show that Tasmania now has the highest unemployment rate in the nation: 6.2 per cent for the month of April. These figures also reveal that there are 2½ thousand fewer Tasmanians employed since the Morrison government cut JobKeeper at the end of the March. We warned them not to do it. We warned them that unemployment would rise in Tasmania, and it has. Tasmania's underemployment remains the highest in the nation at 9.1 per cent. We in the Labor Party know the awful toll that unemployment can take on workers and their families. It's why we advocated for a wage subsidy in the first place when the coronavirus reared its head—a wage subsidy this Prime Minister argued against as a dangerous idea and a wage subsidy this Prime Minister had to be talked into enacting. It was Labor and the unions and big business that brought this Prime Minister to the table on a wage subsidy to evade high unemployment, and he has cut it too early. As a result, my state now has the highest unemployment in the country. To this government and to this Prime Minister, workers are just business unit costs, to be kept as low as possible. In fact, the Treasurer went so far as to talk up the numbers to the Hobart press during his 'building better margins' tour last week in Tasmania. Just when we thought the Morrison government could not be more out of touch, it finds a way to sink even further. What breathtaking arrogance! What unfettered entitlement and self-congratulatory rot!

May I remind the House that last week's disability royal commission report revealed that just eight Tasmanians in disability residential care have received their COVID-19 vaccine—eight in the whole state. To that I say: shame! Shame on this government for letting down our community's most vulnerable citizens. It becomes clearer and clearer every day that the Prime Minister cannot be trusted to look after the best interests of Tasmanians. He always leaves Tasmania behind. It was five months between visits when the Prime Minister flew down to Tasmania last week, and what did he do and where did he go? He snapped a few pics—a photo opportunity at the Hillwood Berries farm—before hopping aboard the government jet to fly to Burnie and back. Any guesses as to the nature of the electorate listed? Marginal Liberal seats—Bass and Braddon. It's all about him and his government. We're facing 6.2 per cent unemployment in Tasmania, and the only jobs he cares about in Tasmania are those of the member for Bass and the member for Braddon. He did not come to Tasmania with a plan for jobs, infrastructure or a vision for a better future. It's all smirk and mirrors with this Prime Minister. The only rollout he's interested is a red carpet for himself. Let's get a photo at the footy. Let's get a photo in fancy dress. He hasn't worked a day on site in his entire life but somehow he is always in high-vis. Let's get a photo building a chicken coop. Let's get a close-up of me hammering in that imaginary nail. Let's get a photo pushing trolleys at the berry farm. Tasmanians will like that one. They will be fooled by that. The ultimate fake tradie. He can pose and posture all he likes, but Tasmania is always left behind by the Liberal government.

Last week this Liberal government announced a $600 million taxpayer funded, ill-conceived gas-fired power plant in New South Wales. Industry experts are scratching their heads. No private investors will touch it. The International Energy Agency is calling time on the construction of fossil fuel projects. What's worse is this government intervention now threatens the viability of Tasmania's Battery of the Nation project. According to John Devereaux from goanna energy, 'The power plant at Kurri Kurri'—I should say the announced power plant, as we're yet to see it happen—'makes the case for a second Marinus Link less compelling'. There he is giving $600 million of taxpayer funds for a gas-fired plant in New South Wales and it directly threatens a Battery of the Nation power generation and storage project in Tasmania. Well done. What an economic mastermind.

Just a few short months ago this Prime Minister was spruiking the benefits of Battery of the Nation in the Tasmania. I quote:

Tasmania has the potential to be Australia's battery to keep the lights on and running costs down and we'll be there backing them to get there.

That's what he announced. But he certainly has not delivered. And now he's put the whole project at risk by this ridiculous intervention in the New South Wales market.

The government says the new plant will: 'Maintain reliable power across the network', which is exactly what the Marinus Link interconnector is designed to do. Tasmania has a renewable, dispatchable generation storage project ready to go. Let me ask the question: what is in this budget for Tasmanians? We've had two weeks now to sift through the spin and the slush funds. Infrastructure is a massive con job. There's nothing for housing, nothing for health. There's money for aged-care providers but not for workers. We know this Liberal government is focused solely on building bigger margins, not better roads. Where is the support for people with disabilities just trying to get their vaccines? Where's the support for increasing wages? The Liberal government says it supports workers but the budget flags a real wages cut and no plan to raise them. ABS data last week confirmed growth of just 1.5 per cent over the year to March 2021. With the cost of living set to grow quicker than wages working families are being left behind. If the Morrison government cared about workers why did the Minister for Industrial Relations vote down a proposal to introduce model industrial manslaughter laws? The Labor states voted in favour; the Liberal states voted against. This government hasn't even bothered to respond to the 34 recommendations of the Boland review to improve workplace safety. This government, this Prime Minister, are uncaring, and worse they are incompetent. They can't be trusted with the budget, they can't be trusted with the national finances and they certainly can't be trusted workers' wages into the future.

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