Senator VAN (Victoria) (15:58): I assure Senator Marielle Smith that I'll be anything but delicate in this. What we've seen today is marketing spin at its greatest. We've seen the Labor Party's marketing plans exposed in the parliament by Senator Birmingham, after the attacks by those opposite and now this take note of answers motion. They are going to go after the Prime Minister and they are going to highlight that he has been slow and late on vaccines, climate change, bushfires and financial support for Victoria. Well, let me set the record straight on this, because we're anything but slow or late on any of these.

On 5 November last year, the Prime Minister put out an announcement that he had already ordered 135 million doses of vaccine, more than enough for five doses for every Australian. Then, last week, in my home state of Victoria, Premier Andrews said in the media that the Prime Minister forgot to order the vaccines. We know that's a lie. We know that the Premier of Victoria lied about that. On 21 February this year, the Prime Minister announced that the Australian government had 'a comprehensive plan to offer COVID-19 vaccines to all Australians by the end of October 2021'. And I think we've seen that, by the end of October—or maybe a day or two after—that was done. We hit 80 per cent vaccinated. More than 91 per cent of the eligible population over 16 are now protected. No-one said that the rollout of the vaccine had to be a straight line. Of course it was going to ramp up. We had no vaccine. There were countries that demanded and needed vaccine more than we did, and they got it. But we met our promise to the Australian people. The Prime Minister made a promise to the Australian people and we met it.

Our record on the vaccine rollout is better than the UK, better than the US and better than New Zealand. So with more vaccines going into arms every day, it's likely that we'll overtake more vaccines. The Labor Party's position on vaccines is woeful. The Labor Party has endorsed a candidate for the seat of Higgins who spent all of last year and most of this year putting out misinformation and creating vaccine hesitancy about the AstraZeneca vaccine, saying it was a population-level experiment with high stakes attached to it. Personally, I'm not comfortable with that approach at all. She also said there is a possibility that the AstraZeneca vaccine will be rolled out to 10 million adults but we still might be vulnerable when we relax our international borders. We know that's not true. Would the Labor candidate for Higgins have voted with Pauline Hanson's One Nation party yesterday? It sounds like it, from this. She has promoted vaccine hesitancy all the way through. We can see that Labor has had a really ordinary run on that.

I'm happy to talk to the financial support for Victoria. The Morrison government has provided over $4 billion to Victoria through COVID economic support. That is more per capita than any other state in the country—

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Van, I remind you that the questions today from Senators Smith, Wong and Grogan went to the Prime Minister.

Senator VAN: And I'm answering that completely. I'm happy to take that point of order because I'm being directly relevant. I'm addressing each one of these.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: You were. You started off—

Senator VAN: I'm correcting the record—

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Van, it's not an argument. I'm simply directing you to the questions that were asked by Labor senators. You started off on track but, over the last 30 or 40 seconds, you've gone off track, and I'm simply pointing out to you what the comments were.

Senator Dean Smith: In a contribution of five minutes, I don't think going off the track for 30 to 40 seconds warrants an intervention by the chair.

The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Smith, it's not a debating point. I am simply directing the senator to the take note questions.

Senator VAN: That's exactly what I'm doing. Labor is attacking the Prime Minister on a record that cannot be attacked. He has done exactly what he said he would do and what we would do. We said we'd take on climate change. I'm going again to your document—the one that you're all clearly following in the chamber today and we're going to see for the next two weeks until the election. You're clearly going to go after the Prime Minister. This is clearly your tactic, to your point, Madam Deputy President. This is your tactic that I'm correcting the record on. We went to the election and we said we'd take 26 to 28 per cent as our Paris target for our NDC, and we are on track to meet that. The Prime Minister is keeping his promise on that. He's keeping his promise on meeting and beating the Paris target. We've already projected that we'll hit 35 per cent. So every one of your points in your marketing plan—when Senator Smith talks about marketing and spin, we can see yours. We can see straight through your tactics. It's not going to work. The people of Australia are not going to believe it. They aren't going to stand for it, and you'll see the results in the election next year. (Time expired)

Senator VAN (Victoria) (13:48): I rise today not to have an argument with the Victorian Premier, but to say this; the Premier wilfully misrepresented the facts by saying that the PM 'forgot to order the vaccines' in a media conference last week.

The Premier knows full well that vaccines were ordered. The PM's media release of 5 November 2020 highlights that 134 million doses had been ordered.

The Premier's wilful misrepresentation of the facts is just another political ploy by Mr Andrews and can tell him now that Victorians see right through him, just as they have over his complete overreach for unfettered political power.

No-one is arguing that states don't require emergency powers. However, he has had ample powers, that included parliamentary oversight, and he still managed to lock Victorians down for longer than any other place in the world.

The powers he has put to the Victorian lower house already are the greatest power overreach Australia has ever seen.

The Victorian Bar says - and I quote, ‘the bill provides grossly insufficient Parliamentary supervision over the Minister's exercise of that power'.

The Bar and 60 eminent QCs said that the bill provides 'extremely broad and unchecked powers on authorised officers'.

Now let's be clear: these officers are not sworn officers; they are a surge workforce on temporary contracts being paid approximately $90,000 a year.

Mr Andrews' introduction of this bill is giving him totalitarian-like powers, and this shows why he has earned the nickname 'Dictator Dan'.