Fiona Phillips (Gilmore, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

If you can't govern your party, you can't govern the country. The Morrison government is a hopelessly divided government that is coming apart at the seams. The Liberal government has racked up a trillion dollars in debt with hardly anything to show for it. Working families cannot risk or afford another three years of attacks on Medicare, wages and job security. Within my electorate of Gilmore, the government's list of failures is long. When the bushfires were on, the Prime Minister abandoned us all and fled to Hawaii. He abandoned constituents in my electorate. The government's failed to deliver a radiation therapy treatment service at Moruya. They promised it at the last election—not delivered.

But this is the tip of the iceberg when one understands the systemic failure of this government in delivering health and mental health services. I'll start by saying we love our nurses, our doctors and all our hospital and health workers. They are absolute champions, working in the most difficult conditions. All I hear from locals is praise for the hardworking and caring teams. They are there every day, caring for our community and going above and beyond to help those who are in need. I thank them for everything they do today and every day.

But people in Batemans Bay and Moruya just want to have their hospital services improved. At present, around two-thirds of patients have to travel outside the area for hospital and cancer care treatment. That often means a long trip to Canberra, requiring additional costs for overnight stays and time away from loved ones. The plan was for a brand-new Eurobodalla hospital to provide the higher level 4 services and include intensive care and mental health beds. But no. In a growing community, there will be fewer maternity beds, no intensive care unit, fewer emergency beds, no acute mental health services, no dedicated paediatric and neonatal support, and no orthopaedics.

This government thinks itself good on announcements, but it is a failure with a capital F on delivery. The prime Minister never intended to keep his promise to introduce a national anticorruption commission. It's now three long years since Mr Morrison assured Australians a national anticorruption commission would be delivered, but there is nothing. Worse still, there is an endless series of rorts and scandals. Labor will introduce a strong, independent anticorruption commission, with real teeth, with all the powers of a standing royal commission and with investigative bite against serious and systemic corruption in the federal government.

The government's failure across the Australian economy is certainly not in the best interests of Australians. Everything except your wages is going up under the Morrison government. That's right: eight long years of wage stagnation. All the while, we see the soaring cost of housing and the flow-on effect with the cost of rentals. Across our nation, there is an absolute housing crisis. I've previously shared with the House how I'm on the Shoalhaven homelessness task force. Locally, the Shoalhaven Homeless Hub has been providing homelessness services from its central Nowra address for over 20 years, supporting men, women and children. They are saying to me that an increasing number of people who have never encountered homelessness before are now becoming homeless for the very first time, for their properties are being sold and they cannot find alternative accommodation within the time frame provided. This is a vicious cycle that is playing out across the country.

The absolute failure of this Morrison government is the lack of leadership. If you're going to make housing affordable, the federal government must be involved. A Labor government will create a $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, creating thousands of jobs now and in the long term. Over the first five years, the fund will build around 20,000 social housing properties, and 4,000 of these properties will be for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence and for older women on lower incomes who are at risk of homelessness. That is leadership. It is in the best interests of Australians to elect an Albanese Labor government.