Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

People would know the Danish fable of 'the emperor has no clothes'. Here in Australia we have a similar tale: it's called 'the Prime Minister who doesn't hold a hose'. The last 18 months have stripped this Prime Minister of any credibility he may once have had. He has been exposed nakedly as the fake that he is. He's the kind of bloke who will force you to shake his hand even if you don't want to. He's the kind of bloke who'll say, 'That's not my job,' and then take the credit whenever he can. He's a very cunning politician but he is not a leader.

Recently, the Prime Minister stopped hiding under his doona and he's back. The shapeshifter is back! He is now trying to reinvent himself as Australia's COVID messiah. He wants Australians to believe that he's here to save their freedoms. He wants Australians to forget that the reason they're locked up is because he spent 18 months not doing his job, leaving the hard work to the state premiers.

If the Prime Minister really cared, he'd have built safe quarantine and he would have ordered enough vaccines. People in Melbourne are enduring their second winter in lockdown and rocking up to vaccine clinics at six in the morning, desperate to get a jab. The lockdowns are because the man who sits over there in the Prime Minister's chair didn't take responsibility or lead. The truth is that Australia would already be safely opening up if he had done his job.

Australia will not just move on and forget, as he hopes; they'll hold this bloke to account for his failures and for his broken promises.