Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

[by video link] I rise to speak on the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021. Here in Sydney we're entering our sixth week of lockdown, with no end in sight. In the last week we've been joined by those living in South-East Queensland. In Victoria and South Australia restrictions have only recently been lifted. There are more than 10 million Australians currently enduring a lockdown. People are doing it tough, particularly here in south-west Sydney but also around Australia.

The most direct consequence of the COVID-19 outbreak is the impact on mental and physical health. Currently there are 286 people hospitalised with COVID here in New South Wales and 53 of those people are in intensive care. Tragically, there have been 17 deaths in this current outbreak. This outbreak and the subsequent lockdowns are taking a heavy mental-health toll. At a time when loneliness, isolation and alienation are already widely felt across the community, these lockdowns are exceptionally difficult.

Then there is the economic toll this outbreak is taking. These lockdowns are costing the Australian economy $300 million a day. When the number is that massive it can feel very abstract. It's the collective loss of tens of thousands of small businesses. That's what it means. Many of them have been forced to shut-up shop. It is the collective loss for millions of Australian workers of their jobs or at least their shifts. For weeks, millions of Australian workers and their families have faced an uncertain future. The country simply did not know what support would be available from the federal government in this time of great need.

This outbreak did not come out of the blue. These lockdowns are not unprecedented. There was no need for this mad scramble to announce a series of ad hoc support packages. It has created unnecessary confusion about what help is available and who is eligible to receive it.

When Australia was first plunged into lockdown last year, Labor and the trade union movement called for wage subsidies. The Morrison government opposed it initially. They were eventually dragged kicking and screaming to set up JobKeeper. JobKeeper is deeply flawed, but it's also a critically important scheme. The Morrison government chose to exclude casuals who had been with their employer for more than a year from JobKeeper. In March, when the Morrison government decided to kill JobKeeper, Labor called for that architecture to be kept in place for those who needed it. But the Prime Minister was living in his own fantasy world at that point. He was saying that the vaccine rollout wasn't a race. He was playing down the urgency of the vaccine rollout while, at the same time, dismantling the economic support that had been developed in case of further lockdowns. If you aren't going to take the vaccine rollout seriously, you need to keep the contingency measures in place. It's that simple.

This brings us back to the real reason that 10 million Australians are in lockdown today, which is that the Prime Minister failed in the only two jobs he had this year: he failed to lead a speedy and effective vaccine rollout, and he failed to set up a national quarantine system. We are almost last among all developed nations for vaccination rates. It's a horrific situation we're now finding ourselves in. This is 18 months into the pandemic, and we're still relying on hotels to act as emergency quarantine facilities. Since November, there's been a leak from hotel quarantine, on average, every nine days. The Prime Minister's failures on vaccines and quarantine are the reason we are in this horrible situation.

But those aren't the only failures of the Morrison government this year. The aviation sector has been particularly badly hit by the COVID-19 pandemic. When JobKeeper was killed in March, the aviation sector was very clear about the need for continued wage subsidies. At the March hearings of the inquiry into the future of Australian aviation post COVID-19, workers from all corners of the aviation industry were calling for continued wage subsidies not just to keep food on the table but also to keep workers connected to their industry and to their companies and to ensure that, once the sector does get back on its feet, we have a trained and ready workforce to stand back up.

Ms Cory Flynn, an airline worker and Australian Services Union delegate, said:

Having JobKeeper or knowing that we did have some source of income coming to us, was a relief … I can't stress enough how important it is for our industry to have JobKeeper there until our industry can get back on its feet.

This is a direct quote from an aviation worker, and a number of other aviation workers have spoken out very clearly on this matter. A flight attendant from the Flight Attendants Association of Australia was quoted in evidence as saying:

Without this support, I would have to have moved back to South Australia and possibly be split from my husband whilst I am pregnant with our first child.

These are direct quotes about the importance of a continued wage subsidy and the importance of keeping aviation workers connected with their employer.

What did the Morrison government do? There was no wage subsidy. They instead set up a pork-barrelling scheme to provide subsidised airfares to marginal seats. The pork-barrelling was so blatant the government had to tack on new destinations the week after it was announced, and we still don't know how the destinations were chosen. I have asked Austrade and the department of transport at the last two rounds of estimates, and no-one can tell me. Austrade pointed me to a few datasets. When we analysed them, it turned out that none of it matched with the actual destinations the government selected. It's just the latest in a long series of rorts and lack of transparency by the Morrison government, and this one is particularly disgusting because it came at the expense of those aviation workers who are left behind.

Just this week, the Deputy Prime Minister got up and announced a new wage subsidy, five long months after aviation workers had told us that they desperately need support. It took five months for the government to react, and the package they announced was only for pilots and cabin crew. There is nothing in that package for thousands of ground staff doing it tough around Australia. This is the problem with the Morrison government's policy on the run: people get left behind. In this case, those ground staff have been left behind intentionally.

But Labor do support this bill today, and we have supported any support for workers and families doing it tough during this pandemic. We have not let the perfect be the enemy of the good. At every stage, Labor has put forward constructive policies and ideas for how we can support Australia through the crisis. Some, like JobKeeper, have been adopted by the government, albeit with added rorting and carve-outs. I strongly encourage the government to listen to Labor and the trade union movement again. There needs to be simple, clear and consistent financial support for workers who are losing jobs and income as a result of the pandemic.

Lastly, the Morrison government needs to take a serious look at what is happening with the vaccine rollout for aged-care workers. At the Senate Select Committee on Job Security last week three major aged-care providers told us they were going to struggle to meet the 17 September deadline for full vaccination.

Debate interrupted.