Julian Hill MPFederal Member for Bruce

Julian Hill MP

Every future lockdown, every future restriction, every future leak, every future illness is because of this Prime Minister's failure to do his two jobs: vaccines and quarantine.

Prime Minister has left the country exposed and vulnerable to more COVID outbreaks

House of Representatives - 24 June, 2021

I think it was three weeks ago, or thereabouts, when we were here in this chamber and COVID was spreading across Victoria from a leak from hotel quarantine in South Australia.

I warned at that point in some of my remarks that the Liberals who were over there trolling the Victorian government and saying that somehow a leak from South Australia was the fault of Victoria maybe shouldn't be so smug because it could happen anywhere in any Australian city at any time—in Sydney, for instance.

It wasn't a prophecy or a prediction; it was just common sense because the Prime Minister has left the country—every state, every territory, every city, every region—exposed and vulnerable because of his failures in vaccine and quarantine. As has been said, he had two jobs this year, and he's failed in both of them.

We've heard some of the government speakers tell us: 'It's all going okay. It's 99.9 per cent effective.' As the Member for Cowan said it's nonsense when we speak about medi-hotels as if somehow they will solve the quarantine problem. They're hotels. They're not built to contain viruses and the fact is that Australia will continue to suffer more leaks from hotel quarantine, more outbreaks and more lockdowns and restrictions, as we're seeing happening in Sydney now. But the government's in denial.

Earlier we saw the member for Higgins, my good friend. I'm sorry she's not here now. I saw her on TV a couple of weeks ago talking about hotel quarantine on Patricia Karvelas's ABC show, Afternoon Briefing. She said: 'Well, the first thing I want to say is that hotel quarantining is working. What is not working is when the cases leave quarantining, so we're not seeing mass outbreaks in quarantine hotels that we can't contain. What we're finding is that people are leaving hotel quarantine, going out into the community and the community is resulting in a community outbreak.' She tells us that she's one of the smarter ones over there.

Here was I thinking the whole purpose of quarantine was to stop the infectious disease getting out into the community. Silly old me! What would we know?

Purpose-built quarantine is the one type of quarantine that's 100 per cent effective, and that is what the Prime Minister has refused, month after month, to build, relying instead on this failing system that will infect Australians.

Then there's the vaccine. Talk about failure! About three per cent of our population have been vaccinated. It's 50 to 70 per cent in much of the developed world now. We're way behind.

And we've got no choice. They bet their house on AstraZeneca, put all their eggs in the AstraZeneca basket, which is turning out to be a mess, and we've got no supply. Most of the states and territories have run out. You can't get a Pfizer booking for months.

We've got no targets, we learnt today, just a horizon. The funny thing about a horizon, as the Labor leader said, is that you never actually meet a horizon. You can meet a target but you can't meet a horizon.

We've got no ads. They've outsourced public education to Clive Palmer, who has put two of his nonsense misinformation leaflets around my electorate in this week alone. We're in a race against COVID, the Prime Minister says, to save lives and livelihoods. But that's not a talking point. It's not stuff you say in question time to get out of answering the question; it's actually something you have to do by fixing the vaccine rollout and fixing quarantine.

I feel really sorry for the military guy, the guy they've got fronting the failed vaccine rollout, Lieutenant General—I can't remember his name right now. It's no surprise. Do you remember the border security thing? The Prime Minister was up there on TV every day stopping the boats. He had the military there, the flags.

But he won't take responsibility for borders or quarantine now, when it really matters to every Australian. He is taking responsibility for one aspect of the borders, of course. He's locking every Australian in Australia indefinitely—there's indefinite detention for the whole country—because he cannot get the vaccine right and cannot get purpose-built quarantine.

It is the defining characteristic, above all else, of this Prime Minister: an arrogant, smug refusal ever to take responsibility. We saw it when he nicked off to Hawaii during the bushfires—'I don't hold a hose, mate!' We've seen it with climate change: nicking off to the G7 and going on a UK pub crawl, funded by the taxpayer, and then on a little secret side trip for a bit of family history — probably while his QAnon mate was house-sitting Kirribilli for him. It's not an Airbnb, Prime Minister! And we've seen it on quarantine and vaccines.

But he does try to take credit for everyone else's good work. We hear all the time that Australia's done well compared to other countries. Yes, we have, because the community have made sacrifices, because we have good health professionals and a good system, because politicians have been smart enough on this—unlike on climate change—to listen to the experts, and because the premiers have done well.

He has failed at his two jobs. Every Australian should understand that every future lockdown, every future restriction, every future leak, every future illness is because of this Prime Minister's failure to do his two jobs: vaccines and quarantine.

45 Robinson Street Dandenong VIC 3175 Email julian.hill.mp@aph.gov.au Phone (03) 9791 7770
Authorised by Julian Hill, Australian Labor Party, Dandenong