Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

Like other Labor speakers, I will be supporting the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021 because Labor certainly supports the government's plans, albeit belated plans, to get money into the hands of people who are suffering right now from Prime Minister Scott Morrison's lockdown. We know that there are millions of people across Australia hurting very badly as a result of the Prime Minister's failures, which have led to these lockdowns, and I will have a little bit more to say about that over the course of my contribution.

The mere fact that we need this bill is evidence of the Prime Minister's failures. As we have often said, and will continue to say, this year the Prime Minister had two jobs: to fix the vaccine rollout and to build purpose-built quarantine stations around our country so that we could stop relying on hotel quarantine. Hotel quarantine is a leaky system which, so far, has seen 27 leaks of COVID-19 from it, and no doubt with more to come over the months if not years that we will have to wait for this government and this Prime Minister to finally build the quarantine facilities that were recommended by their own expert last year.

It is terribly sad for millions of Australians that the Prime Minister has so grossly failed to perform those two jobs that he had. And the results can be seen all around us. There are currently 10 million Australians in lockdown across greater Sydney and South-East Queensland. I note it has been confirmed today there is a COVID-positive case in Cairns, so we will have to keep an eye on what happens there, and in recent days there has been a COVID-positive case in Central Queensland as well. That has not led to an outbreak as yet, and we can only hope that that remains the case. These are the consequences of the Prime Minister's failure to do his job.

We remember this Prime Minister saying, over and over again, that the vaccination rollout was not a race. 'It's not a race; it's not a competition.' And you can certainly see that was the attitude this Prime Minister had when you look at the league table for how Australia compares to other countries—we're the worst in the developed world. If this were a race under Prime Minister Scott Morrison's leadership, we wouldn't have even started. We wouldn't be out of the starting blocks. We are being lapped over and over again—not just by highly developed countries around the world that we like to compare ourselves to, but also by quite disadvantaged countries in the world. They are so far ahead of us in vaccination rates that it's not even funny. So, the fact that we have 10 million Australians in lockdown right now is direct evidence of this Prime Minister's failure to do his job. The fact that we now have jobs being lost again, businesses closing again and businesses going bankrupt again as a result of lockdowns is directly attributable to this Prime Minister's failure to do his job and to take the advice and suggestions of the opposition.

Over the last 12 months I've almost lost count of the number of constructive suggestions that the opposition has made to the government to try to get on top of COVID and to try to avoid the kind of damage that we are seeing across the country now. We were calling for wage subsidies long before the government caved in and agreed to JobKeeper. I heard Senator Brockman give himself and give his government a pat on the back about JobKeeper. Well, I also remember when the Prime Minister was saying that wage subsidies like JobKeeper were dangerous. And, because of the time that it took the government to get moving on JobKeeper is why we saw all of those queues outside Centrelink early last year, all of those jobs that people lost never to be recovered, because this Prime Minister and this government were so stubborn about a Labor idea.

We've seen it again when it comes to vaccines. We were calling for the government to do five or six vaccine deals with different companies, like what we've seen other countries do, but, no, they knew better. It was all about AstraZeneca with a little bit of Pfizer thrown in to top it up, and we all know how that went. If they'd only been prepared to listen to Labor's suggestion about doing deals with five or six companies, we would have many more millions of Australians vaccinated by now and we wouldn't be in lockdown in Sydney and we wouldn't be in lockdown in South-East Queensland with all of the job and business losses that come with it.

We suggested purpose-built quarantine stations, but, no, that couldn't happen because it was a Labor idea. We suggested a serious investment in home-grown manufacturing of mRNA vaccines, but, no, that couldn't happen because it was a Labor idea. We suggested a proper information campaign, particularly to multicultural communities where we are seeing high rates of COVID infections at the moment and low rates of vaccinations, but, no, that couldn't happen because it was a Labor idea. And it happened again yesterday when Labor again put a constructive suggestion forward about paying incentives to get people vaccinated, just like we're seeing in the US and across Europe and Asia. It's good enough for their governments and good enough for their people to have incentives for vaccination, and they're well ahead of us in terms of vaccination rates, but, no, it couldn't happen in Australia. Why? Because it was a Labor idea.

This Prime Minister and his government, at some point, have got to recognise that they've got to actually think about the national interest no matter who puts forward an idea. If it's an idea that's going to work, that's going to lift our vaccination rates, that's going to keep Australians safe, that's going to shield us from the immense economic harm that we are feeling around the country right now, then that good idea should be accepted no matter who suggests it. I don't care if the Prime Minister feels a bit embarrassed or a bit bad that he's having to rely on the opposition to put forward ideas rather than come up with his own—I just want these things done. If he wants to take credit for them, like he has done with JobKeeper even though he resisted it in the first place, well, fine, just do it, because that is the way that we will lift vaccination rates, keep Australians safe and keep Australians running their businesses and keep them in work. That's what matters. Again, his refusal to do so comes back to this stubbornness that we see over and over from the Prime Minister, his constant desire to play politics rather than put the national interest first. It comes back to that complacency we have seen from the Prime Minister and so many other ministers in this government over the last few months, best exemplified by that quote which will hang around his neck forever, 'It's not a race.' Well, we know where that has ended up.

So, on behalf of my family who are currently in lockdown in Brisbane, unable to go to their workplace, home schooling, and on behalf of every family in South-East Queensland or Sydney or anywhere else in the country that's going through lockdown right now, 'Thanks very much, Prime Minister. Maybe next time we put forward an idea you might like to actually hear it out and think about whether it would work rather than just dismiss it because it wasn't your own idea.' It's not about the Prime Minister putting his own vanity about whether he has an idea above the interests of the Australian people first. The interests of the Australian people should always come first, not the Prime Minister's vanity, not the source of an idea.

As I say, the Prime Minister's failure to do his job to get vaccines in arms and to build quarantine stations is having a direct impact right around the country at the moment, and day after day after day in local media we see examples of the kind of economic carnage that is being caused right now. I mentioned yesterday that, earlier in the week, before the South-East Queensland lockdown started, I met with representatives of the Gold Coast Airport. Their passenger numbers have fallen from about 80 per cent of pre-COVID levels—so they were starting to get back to pretty close to normal. The minute the Sydney and Melbourne lockdowns started, their passenger numbers fell to 10 per cent. That isn't just having an impact on the profits and workers at the Gold Coast Airport; that means there are fewer people coming into the Gold Coast, going to the hotels, going to the restaurants, going to the shops. So that is destroying the local economy across the Gold Coast.

It's the same in Cairns, where I was last week, meeting with tourism operators. And Port Douglas is one of the most popular tourist resorts in the country at this time of year and is usually full of people from Melbourne, particularly, escaping the dead of winter in Melbourne. Prior to the lockdowns interstate, they were at 85 per cent hotel occupancy. The minute the Melbourne and Sydney lockdowns started, their occupancy levels fell to 30 per cent. So that's going to put tourism workers out of work in Far North Queensland, and it's no doubt going to send many businesses to the wall, given they were barely hanging on in the first place.

These are the direct consequences of the Prime Minister failing to do his job. It is not an academic exercise. It is not a political point in a speech. It is about people's jobs, their livelihoods, their health and whether they can actually continue functioning, despite what is going on with COVID around the world. As I say, even today these problems continue to go on. I noticed today the chief operating officer of Village Roadshow Theme Parks on the Gold Coast was quoted in the in the Gold Coast Bulletin:

"Many small businesses are practically trading insolvent and in Village's case we are burning cash with our ongoing costs, which is a really significant burden," he said. "For us to survive, we need (government) support in lockdown, out of lockdown and it needs to go to December 31. I speak on behalf of every hotel, every accommodation house in this city, and of all the small business here who are in dire straits."

Small businesses on the Gold Coast and across South-East Queensland are in dire straits because of Scott Morrison's lockdown, the lockdown that was caused because the Prime Minister didn't take it seriously, because he didn't think it was a race, because he didn't get people vaccinated and he didn't build quarantine stations. As I say, it's the same in Cairns, and I noticed it in last night's TV bulletins in Cairns. The head of Tourism Tropical North Queensland, Mr Mark Olsen, said: 'Without wage support, we will lose business forever.' Mr Ken Chapman, the head of Skyrail, one of the most popular tourist attractions in Far North Queensland, described the current situation as worse than 12 months ago, because back then they had JobKeeper. They don't have it now. In fact, because Far North Queensland is not currently locked down, they're not getting any support from this government. Their tourist numbers have fallen away, they've got businesses going to the wall because they were barely hanging on because of the last lockdowns, but now, because they are not in lockdown, there is not a dollar of financial support from the federal government to assist those businesses or those workers. It is not good enough.

This is the price of the Prime Minister's lockdown. This is the price of his not taking this seriously, of saying it's not a race, of not doing his two jobs, being to get people vaccinated and to build quarantine stations. In fact, the situation when it comes to vaccinations has been made really stark overnight with the release of new data from the federal government which shows just how low the vaccination rates, particularly in regional Queensland—and, no doubt, other parts of regional Australia—are. I will just give you a couple of examples. In Queensland right now, in the Mackay, Isaac and Whitsunday region, only 10 per cent of the population has been fully vaccinated. That means 90 per cent of the population in the Mackay, Isaac and Whitsunday region is not vaccinated, is at risk of getting COVID when it gets into the region, is at risk of a lockdown happening. That's a seat this government hold. They have the power to get vaccines there. We see them rort every other program under the sun—to get car parks in their electorates, to get sports grants in their electorates—but, when it comes to getting vaccines in the arms of their own constituents, in their own seats, they're the slowest in the state and the slowest in the country. Central Queensland is not much better, with 14.7 of the population fully vaccinated. Even more worryingly, in South-East Queensland, which is currently in lockdown because of a spate of delta variant vaccinations, in the Logan-Beaudesert region, only 13.2 per cent of the population is vaccinated—13.2 per cent of the population vaccinated in an area that is currently locked down and is at high risk of COVID outbreaks emerging. And it's not much better anywhere else in Queensland. So we need this Prime Minister and this government to take this seriously and to finally get vaccinations happening.

Labor supports this bill and we support these payments being made. If the government had done its job, it wouldn't have ever happened. But we are here. There are nevertheless a few gaps in terms of these payments, which we have been taking up with the government and which need to be addressed. Under this system, workers aged under 17 are unable to access the payment. My office has heard from young apprentices who don't qualify for these payments even though they are out of work. Workers living outside of COVID hot-spot declared areas but forced to lock down are not eligible. Sole traders and microbusinesses have fallen between the gaps, as well as casuals who are not scheduled for work. There is still work to be done and the government needs to get on with it. (Time expired)