Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

Labor will support the Treasury Laws Amendment (COVID-19 Economic Response No. 2) Bill 2021, but let's be in no doubt about why we're having to deal with this bill now, why millions of Australians across New South Wales and Queensland are subject to lockdowns and why we're sitting in the parliament with particularly strict restrictions. It's because of the failure of this government and, in particular, the Prime Minister to do their job—two jobs, specifically: to get the vaccine rollout right, in a speedy and effective way, and to fix the national quarantine system.

These failures are costing Australians every day. The economy is bleeding hundreds of millions of dollars a day and billions of dollars each week, all thanks to the Prime Minister's failures. This is the stark price that is being paid by workers and businesses, particularly small businesses, for the Prime Minister's incompetence. And it's not only been incompetence; it's been dangerous complacency and a complete failure to take responsibility. How many times did the Prime Minister say that it wasn't a race and that it wasn't a competition? What about the government designating aged-care workers as being in the phase 1a category but who still haven't been fully vaccinated? And then, after months of the Prime Minister failing to take responsibility for these failures, it was the fault of the Europeans, then it was ATAGI's fault and then he grudgingly apologised. Even then, at first, it was apologising for not meeting the marks the government had hoped to achieve. Finally, we had the Prime Minister saying he takes responsibility for the early setbacks in the vaccination program.

Now we see the Prime Minister invoking Olympic-level rhetoric—gold medal runs; a triple gold, apparently. It's all well and good to invoke the spirit of inspiration that we've been seeing on our television screens for the last few days, but it's something else to be running a race where we've deliberately been left on the starting blocks or swimming with weights around our legs, thanks to incompetence and complacency and a failure to take responsibility.

Where do we find ourselves right now? Based on the latest data as of 2 August, just under 12.6 million vaccine doses have been administered. So 19.7 per cent of the eligible population, Australians aged 16 and over, are fully vaccinated or, put another way, 15.8 per cent of the total population are fully vaccinated. If we're running a race, based on these statistics we're falling way behind. We're close to last in the OECD, and that's no exception when it came to the vaccine rollout.

Now we hope that we can get to the targets that have been outlined by the government through the work done by the Doherty institute. Based on the information we have seen, we should have the supply required to get us to the 80 per cent target by the end of the year. As the national plan to transition Australia's national COVID response points out, there should be measures to encourage uptake through incentives as part of phase B. Labor agree, and it's why we have called on the government to provide a payment of $300 for every fully vaccinated Australian. That would provide a further incentive to get two vaccine doses and deliver much-needed stimulus for businesses and workers at the end of this year. Unfortunately, as is the government's approach, out of sheer political arrogance they will refuse to take up any useful or good ideas that they didn't come up with.

I've seen the Prime Minister in the last day talk about or seek to lecture on fiscal responsibility and the need to be cautious with our spending. I would say in response to those comments that I don't think the Prime Minister is in any position to lecture anybody about fiscal responsibility considering he is the architect of the slush funds and the rorts that we have seen embedded in this budget. That's not just since he's been Prime Minister. When he became Treasurer, he cottoned on pretty quickly to how to hide money in the budget—billions of unallocated dollars that he could use to buy seats, to buy elections. This is the legacy of this Prime Minister. We won't be taking any lectures about fiscal responsibility from a group that spent $660 million on car parks, targeting particular electorates they want to win, including four in the Treasurer's own electorate. These are the two holders of the purse strings and this is what they're doing. They're doing it with their eyes open, knowing exactly how they're spending taxpayer funds.

We would argue rewarding people for doing the right thing, incentivising those who might be weighing up getting vaccinated, is a very good use of public funds. It's much better than rorting through spreadsheets, rorting through maps, rorting through car parks, rorting through sports grants or rorting through whatever you want to choose. That's how this government has spent hundreds of millions of dollars. So we won't be taking lectures about that. How about we use public funds for the public good? There's an idea. That's exactly what Labor's idea is about—incentivising. It is urgent that we get people vaccinated as soon as possible. That is clear from the Doherty institute modelling and, indeed, from the economic impact analysis released by Treasury yesterday, which put the cost of our slowness in getting vaccinated based on lack of supply in dollar terms. What Treasury have found is that on a 50 per cent vaccination rate and based on the assumptions outlined in this paper the direct economic cost of minimising cases and keeping the cases low is estimated to be about $570 million a week. At 60 per cent, it's around $430 million per week. Once we get to 70 per cent, the costs come down considerably, as do the restrictions placed on people. At 80 per cent, it's still costing around $140 million per week, according to Treasury. So these are the figures. These show you the economic cost—and they don't include the fiscal cost—of the 'strollout' and where we are now. The figure we have today is that just under 20 per cent of the eligible population is vaccinated. By the time we get to 50 per cent, it's still costing $570 million per week to manage this pandemic. So it is urgent. It is important that we incentivise and try to get to these targets as quickly as possible within the supply constraints that have been foisted on this country by the Prime Minister's failure to secure enough vaccine deals and enough vaccines last year when those negotiations were underway. Where many other countries saw the urgency and the need to have a number of vaccine deals, Australia took a very different approach. That is why we are where we are today.

Coupled with those failures on vaccines, we have failures on quarantine. We've seen 27 leaks from hotel quarantine, leading to the mass disruption we are seeing across the country, despite the government knowing and being given advice by the Halton review last year that fit-for-purpose quarantine facilities should be considered to reduce the risk of leaks from hotel quarantine. As we found out at the COVID committee last week, some work is now being done—but only since July—on additional quarantine facilities. It is hard to believe that Finance was asked by the government to look into other sites for federal quarantine facilities only two months ago. Where we're at is that they've done some early feasibility work. But we all know that with projects like this you need detailed feasibility and design work. And whilst the government is reluctant to give us a date, I think what we could take from evidence before the committee last week is that it is months and months away from having any solution on or increased capacity in federal or national quarantine facilities. We also learnt that what the Prime Minister has been telling us, that we've moved from 850 to 2,000 spots at Howard Springs, is also untrue. We haven't got close to that. Last week the numbers were in the order of 1,200 people at Howard Springs. So even the extra capacity that the Prime Minister promised hasn't been reached at the facility that is operational.

The government has simply been too slow to act, and this bill is a consequence of that. The bill before us contains five measures. Schedule 1 of the bill makes amendments to allow the government to make payments to entities impacted by lockdowns during the period of 1 July 2021 to 31 December 2022. Schedule 2 of the bill allows the disclosure of tax information to be provided to Australian government agencies to facilitate COVID-19 business support programs. Schedule 3 of the bill will make payments received by businesses under certain COVID-19 business support programs tax free. Schedule 4 of the bill introduces a temporary mechanism that existed last year that allows ministers to change arrangements for meeting information and documentary requirements under Commonwealth legislation, including requirements to give information and produce, witness and sign documents. This measure will be in place until 31 December. Schedule 5 of the bill would make the COVID-19 payment tax free, covering up what appears to be a slip from the Prime Minister when he said these payments were tax free when guidance online from Treasury, ATO and Services Australia had originally said they were.

Labor does support this bill. Again, we would say that the Commonwealth came late to the table in terms of providing some economic support and engagement. I think they were really forced by the state governments to step up to the table. I think the differential treatment that was provided to Victoria and then to New South Wales, the 'when should the payments kick in' and the 'who should be responsible for what' just shows how dysfunctional this Prime Minister's leadership of national cabinet is. It seems he can't reach agreement with a group of first ministers at all. Unless pressured, he stubbornly refuses to engage; it's only when everyone else can see that the Commonwealth should be stepping up and should be providing support. The lockdown we're having now is directly as a result of the failures of this Prime Minister to manage the vaccine procurement and rollout strategy in the interests of the country and the failure to accept responsibility for quarantine. Quite unbelievably, he is uninterested and without a sense of urgency about managing the risk of people returning to this country. We have 38,000 Australians still overseas, more than 32,000 of whom want to return immediately. There are hundreds of unaccompanied minors overseas unable to return because this government have failed to accept that they have responsibility for quarantine, that they have responsibility for Australian citizens who need to return to this country. The government's failures—the leaks from hotel quarantine, the fact that our communities' vaccination levels are so low—have led to the situation we're in today where we are so vulnerable to the impact of the pandemic that these strict lockdowns had to be put in place.

When it comes to the support that the government's now providing, I think they did it reluctantly. They only did it when they realised how serious the lockdowns were going to be. But overall we support the economic response as it's outlined in this bill. We think the government should keep an open mind about whether they need to do more and how they respond to the situation as it evolves, and we've always said that. Target the assistance to the economic circumstances of the time. That is still our message. It's been our message from the beginning of the pandemic right throughout, and this remains the case. The government should work with other state governments collegiately. They shouldn't treat them differently. They shouldn't be stubborn. They shouldn't refuse support at the first hurdle and then accept the need to step up only when things get really dire.

We need to provide businesses and individuals with certainty that, as we move through the vaccination stage of this pandemic, people will be looked after, they will be supported and we all stand together. Certainty can be provided about economic response. We shouldn't be having businesses wondering when they're going to get help and who they're going to get help from. The Commonwealth should take a leadership role on this. We support this bill, but let's make no mistake: the fact that we're here debating this bill is because of the significant failures of this government in relation to vaccine and quarantine.

I move:

At the end of the motion, add ", but the Senate notes:

(a) only 15% of Australians are fully vaccinated;

(b) businesses and workers are struggling from lockdowns made necessary by the Government's botched vaccine rollout and the lack of purpose-built quarantine facilities; and

(c) these lockdowns are costing the Australian economy hundreds of millions of dollars every day".