Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The Prime Minister of this country, Scott Morrison, could have shut Craig Kelly down weeks or months ago, but he chose not to, because he's a weak leader. He's a weak prime minister who knew what Mr Kelly was advocating through social media for month after month: sharing misinformation and undermining the health experts of this country at a time when Australia was facing the worst health challenge and pandemic in a hundred years. A prime minister at this time needs to step up and show leadership. That's what the Australian community expect and need. But what did we see? No action whatsoever.

In this place this week, we've had the Leader of the Government in the Senate dancing around the issue instead of standing up and calling out Craig Kelly for what he is: a loose cannon who plays up these theories in relation to vaccines. All it does is feed into the right-wing nuts of this country. There is no leadership by the leader in this Senate chamber. Social media, as we all know, is a powerful tool, so the misinformation that Craig Kelly has been disseminating is out there and will continue to be out there.

As if that weren't bad enough, in question time today, what did we see but Senator Matt Canavan encouraging people who want to share the ideas of Craig Kelly to continue to do it because, he claims, if you have those sorts of debates you're going to end up with better outcomes? Well, that is clearly nonsense. How many of the backbench in this government are part of that chorus line? I believe there will be more.

If anyone in this chamber thinks for one minute that the little conversation that the Prime Minister had with Craig Kelly today after the altercation with Tanya Plibersek today in Parliament House is going to stop him, they are sadly mistaken. I have no confidence whatsoever that this will do anything to give Mr Kelly the message that his nonsense is not needed and is harmful to the Australian community. Quite frankly, the Prime Minister was more concerned about keeping Craig Kelly happy than about the health of the Australian people.

Let's get on to the Prime Minister. As we all know, he's always there for the photo opportunity at any time but he never follows through. He's failed again when it comes to the rollout of vaccines for COVID-19. He promised there would be a rollout in March, but already he's dancing and spinning his way out of that and saying, 'No, it's going to be April now, but we are at the front of the queue.' Let's just put on the public record some facts in relation to where Australia really is when it comes to delivering the vaccines. In other countries, once a vaccine has been approved for use, people have been jabbed with it within days, and in those countries people are already getting their second dose. The US, the EU, Canada and the UK all administered their first doses within a week of approval. Now in the UK more than 9.2 million people have been vaccinated. How many in Australia have been vaccinated? None. The TGA approved Pfizer's vaccine well over a week ago, and there is still no time frame for when the vaccines will arrive in Australia or when they are going to be rolled out. The clock is ticking on you, Mr Morrison. The Australian people deserve so much more. We know that the government have used COVID-19 as the excuse for their failings economically. They are using it as an excuse for the attack on Australian workers. This government cannot even be trusted to deliver a vaccine in a timely manner to all Australians. It's alright for Senator Duniam there to smile at my comments, but Tasmanians deserve so much better. We have the oldest population in this country, and to have that—