Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today we had another two likely cases of coronavirus in Melbourne. First of all, we thank them for all of their efforts in order to get their interviews and to isolate and to work with all of the Victorian health staff to try to make sure that this is contained as much as possible. But, it is yet another reminder that this pandemic is not over. This pandemic is raging around the world. In our neighbours in the Pacific and of course in India, this pandemic has been devastating in recent weeks.

The key to managing this across the world has been a vaccination rollout. We have seen countries which have been able to vaccinate their people manage with incoming cases and manage with coronavirus in the community with a reduction in severity of the disease and a reduction in the amount of people who are dying from it.

This government, instead of getting on and delivering a successful vaccination rollout, have now started to blame Australians for not getting a vaccine. This government promised that they would be vaccinating vulnerable Australians. It's now almost June, and our aged-care sector is not even finished. We've less than 1,000 people from the disability sector who have been vaccinated. There is one thing standing in the way of Australians getting out of this pandemic, and that is this federal government's incompetency and their minister for health's stubbornness in this slow vaccine rollout that could potentially lead to another lockdown.