Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Industry) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to pay tribute to the strength and resilience of the people of Gorton in the fight against COVID-19. Gorton has been hit hard by the pandemic, with the two municipalities within my electorate, Brimbank and Melbourne, having the second- and fifth-highest case numbers in the country. Parts of Gorton have faced the longest lockdowns in the country. People have been kept from loved ones for months, even if they live only a few suburbs away, birthdays have been spent alone at home, weddings have been cancelled, families have not been able to attend funerals, and businesses, particularly small businesses, have faced unprecedented restrictions, albeit for legitimate public health reasons. I want to acknowledge, and show my appreciation for, the patience and resilience of each and every resident of my electorate—every small-business owner and every worker in Gorton and across Melbourne. Labor knows you are struggling and how truly tough this has been.

While no-one has enjoyed these measures, the need for these restrictions has been abundantly clear. We must never forget that. One only has to look at the figures from countries like the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and many, many other places to know that Victoria's measures have worked: they've saved lives and they've kept people safe. Let's take the daily case numbers on 3 August. In Victoria, we had 687 new cases, and the United Kingdom had 670. Today, Victoria had one case and no deaths, while the United Kingdom had 18,804 cases and, tragically, 80 deaths. This is a testament to every Victorian—indeed, every Melburnian—who has done the right thing. Melbourne still hasn't reached the end goal, but we are very, very close.

With this COVID normal comes the recovery for small businesses and other businesses across my electorate and across the great city of Melbourne. It's been absolutely vital that, firstly, people comply with the restrictions. Secondly, it's been important to focus on the health needs of Victorians first so we can move to an economic recovery. The idea you could find some midpoint where you only bring in restrictions in a second wave, I think, has been found to be false. The reality is: if we had not heeded the advice of the experts, we would be now not suppressing this second wave. Frankly, if you look at the efforts around the world to suppress second waves, no-one has done it better than Victorians, and they deserve the credit for that effort. Now we need to focus on the economic recovery. We want to see, indeed, efforts by the Commonwealth, the federal government, to do the right thing for businesses. We'll be looking at the announcements in the budget to see whether there's enough. On the first look, I have to say there's not enough for businesses in my electorate. (Time expired)