Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. I thank my colleagues for their support. It has been like living in a gulag living in Victoria for the last 18 months, where at any given moment, because this guy cannot contact-trace, because he's got a bureaucracy that's doing its best but doesn't have the systems in place, the state can be locked down at a moment's notice in such a draconian way. This isn't about Labor versus Liberal, because I praise the Chief Minister of the ACT, Chief Minister Barr, for having recognised that regional Victorians didn't carry the same COVID risk that someone from Melbourne might have in an earlier breakout, so he sensibly applied a definition of a hotspot that was nuanced and wasn't just this carte blanche 'lock up and leave' approach of Daniel Andrews in my home state. That is the reality.

Those opposite are characterising how Victorian senators in this place feel about how our citizenry is being treated, how our economy's been decimated and how at the end of last year 26,000 people fled to other states to live. If you had seen the line-up of cars, including four-wheel drives, with tents stuffed in the back or caravans hitched to the back, with families shoved in them so they could exit Melbourne as quickly as possible at the start of the last lockdown, you would have thought you were in a Third World country and we were about to have a military coup. That is actually the reality, because none of these decisions are being made on medical advice. They are simply being made by an incompetent state government which cannot get its act together after 18 months.

I will call once again for a nationally consistent approach to the definition of a hotspot—that would be great—a nationally consistent approach to handling quarantine and a consistent approach to contact tracing, because both Labor and Liberal states have been able to keep themselves open and going, but there is something decaying and wrong at the heart of the state Labor government in my home state, the name of which starts D and ends with N. Really, you have to live there to understand what it feels like. Presentations to hospitals and specialists by young people with mental health issues have increased by upwards of 30 per cent as a result of this behaviour. Elective surgeries have been postponed. People are now in danger of not getting the health care they need, because of these restrictions. It is absolutely unprecedented, it is unwarranted and it is simply because of their incompetence. For those opposite to come in here from states that are not having to endure this—this particular matter of public importance has been lodged by a Western Australian Labor senator, not even someone who's actually having to live with the reality of these decisions—really gets our goat.

If you had to go through it, you couldn't believe it. Towns like Mildura are 550 clicks from Melbourne and had lockdown restrictions forced upon them, despite recording zero cases. That's not zero cases this week, this month or this year; it's zero cases ever. But they got, 'We're going to lock down your main street and we're going to stop you burying your loved ones.' We saw a tragic case of that in Warrnambool: a mother begging to have a funeral for her primary-school-aged son down in Warrnambool, and she was denied an exemption by a premier who cares more about inducing Stockholm syndrome in his citizenry to secure the next election than he actually does—

Senator McGrath interjecting—

Yes, good question. He cares more for that that he actually does for the health, wellbeing and economic future of our once very proud state.

We have those opposite coming in here and taking cheap political shots, when they all know that the Premier has made that decision and that we have fast-tracked an MOU for a federal quarantine facility in Victoria. We took that proposal from the Victorian Labor government—despite them not offering to put a cent on the table, I might add. Those opposite do that, despite knowing we're doing everything and that the vaccine rate is actually accelerating. Every single group of Australians who are getting vaccinated have it happening quicker and quicker, which is great news. And that's despite us stepping in with essential economic support for Victorian families and businesses.

They want to talk about us all being in this together. I can tell them that if they lived in my home state of 'Danistan' they'd know it doesn't feel like we're all in this together. It feels like we're paying the price for a premier who is drunk on power—

Senator Van interjecting—

Drunk on power, Senator Van. We've done the right thing in striking the balance. I call on all leaders of this nation to develop a consistent approach to hotspots and quarantine so that we actually can deal with the pandemic. (Time expired)