Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

So full of hubris, so busy patting themselves on the back and so full of self-congratulation, the government are, in fact, utterly blind to their responsibilities and the needs of the Australian people—totally blind. I have noted this government being tone deaf on a whole range of issues in the past, and I might come back to some of those. But the idea that members of government would stand up one after another in this chamber saying, 'What a great job we're doing,' when they have utterly failed one of the most basic premises of government: to protect their citizens in a global pandemic! You've got an opportunity now to vaccinate the nation, and there is no sense of urgency whatsoever. There is no sense of urgency about this project at all. There are outbreaks in the state of Victoria again today. Are any of the Victorian members of the government saying, 'Gee, if only we'd got our people vaccinated in a timely manner, we might not be facing this crisis again'? Maybe all that trade and business you would like to see kicking off would have a chance if you'd actually vaccinated people. Telling us we're at the front of the queue when we are 113th is such deceit.

But the Australian people have got you guys clocked. They're not listening to this rhetoric that is churned out day after day after day by this government. When I'm at home in Newcastle, what do people ask about the government? Let me tell you what they ask about you. They say: 'What is this government's plan for this nation? Honestly, what is this vision?' All they see is the master of transactional politics sitting in the Prime Minister's seat at the dispatch box and not doing anything unless there is a direct, immediate political benefit from doing so. We see this time and time again.

The Leader of the Opposition was absolutely right when he said the Prime Minister definitely got the Talking Heads reference completely wrong in his speech the other day. This is a Prime Minister leading us all on a road to nowhere. We're on a road to nowhere when it comes to vaccines now. We have appallingly low rates of vaccination going on. Vaccine hesitancy is through the roof. All my GPs are saying the same thing:, they can't get the kind of supply they need in order to do the vaccines, but, even when they've got the vaccine supply, there's no information going out into the community as to how you could rock up and get your AstraZeneca or Pfizer vaccine in a timely manner. The irony that this Prime Minister—Scotty from Marketing, as he's known to the population—

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