Jordon Steele-John (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the document.

I rise to take note of the Auditor-General's report, Australia's COVID-19 vaccine rollout: Department of Health and Aged Care. This report is pretty damning of the last lot, isn't it? For folks watching at home who might not have had time to read this—and I don't blame you at all if you haven't—I'd like to draw the collective attention to a quote from the report's first lot of conclusions:

Initial planning was not timely, with detailed planning with states and territories not completed before the rollout commenced, and Health underestimated the complexity of administering in-reach services to the aged care and disability sectors. Further, it—

being Health—

did not incorporate … targets for the rollout into its planning until a later stage.

The reality of these missed targets, the underestimations and the untimely planning is 14,214 deaths from, or with, COVID-19. That is 14,000 people taken far too soon from their families with a virus that could have been stopped had the previous government acted in time and if they had listened to the warning signs given by the disability community, who knew from day one of this pandemic that there was the most mortal danger that we would be left behind by a government that so continually failed to incorporate lived experience into its planning processes.

That is 14,000 people gone, including people like the incredible disability advocate and leader, John Moxon, whose loss has devastated our community this week. I want to take the opportunity to offer my sincerest condolences to Margaret, to Bruce and to everyone who loved him so dearly. Rest in power, John. It's one of the great regrets of my life so far that I didn't get a chance to know you more than I did or to learn from you more while you were with us than I had the opportunity to. We have lost so many people it is often too hard to think about. COVID 19 isn't close to being over. How is it that our state and federal governments have become so good at ignoring the reality of this deadly situation? Everyone deserves to be able to participate in society safely, comfortably and fully, and the Australian government should be working towards this end.

This report sets out in writing what so many in our community already know, that the previous government had no previous serious plans to provide vaccines to those who needed them. The previous government clearly and evidently mismanaged the rollout. They underestimated the entire process, and only when we were already in the thick of it, with vaccines having been available for months, did they start to make any kind of decent progress for those who needed these vaccinations the most. I urge this government not to do the same now as we face the continuation of this virus and of long COVID and the extensive symptoms and suffering for thousands.

I want to finish by speaking directly to anybody—in fact, to the tens of thousands who I know in the disability community are immunocompromised, who feel as though the nation, the conversation, has left them behind and is quite happy to see people pass away from COVID 19, as long as the rest of the business community is no longer inconvenienced. I want you to know that the Greens understand that for you this pandemic is not over, that COVID 19 is still keeping you in your homes. I therefore seek leave to continue my remarks later.

Leave granted.