Labor’s Hypocrisy

Senator VAN (Victoria) (09:47):  With the Governor-General's address yesterday we heard a long speech and a lot of words, but so far we've seen a government that is low on action—if any. It's taken them over two months to recall parliament, and it's only going to sit for eight weeks this year. To anyone, that shows a government that is just not prepared to govern, except in very few circumstances. But the Labor Party is now in government and they have been charged with governing Australia and being a government for the people.

The Labor Party's true colours are already beginning to show, and it is clear that, with this government, you have to look not at what they say but what they do. The Labor Party say one thing but do another. Prime Minister Albanese said recently he wants to lead a government that does things. However, the only thing this government has done so far is backflip on policy and support their vested interests. Since the Labor Party has to power, we have seen backflip after backflip. In fact, I think this government should be heading to the Birmingham for the Commonwealth Games to compete in gymnastics, with the number of backflips they have already done in such a short period of time.

Look at their approach to COVID-19. As we are in the midst of an outbreak, one of the worst since the pandemic began, I think it is important to revisit the Labor Party's plan to beat COVID-19. It is interesting that this government has been so silent on their four-point plan. For two years, we had them carping on from the side of the chamber about the handling of COVID. Yet, here we are; they are now on those benches, and they have nothing to say. Given their silence, I will remind them of their four-point plan. First, 'We're going to fix the vaccine rollout'—despite over 95 per cent of Australians aged 16 and over being fully vaccinated. Their second point: build dedicated quarantine facilities. No wonder they have backflipped on that one, seeing how the Queensland Labor government are currently paying $300,000 a day to a medical company to provide healthcare services at its almost empty Wellcamp quarantine facility.

Senator Scarr:  Shame!

Senator VAN:  Big shame, Senator Scarr. Their third point: have an effective public information campaign. I am hearing crickets—crickets about information on COVID. I understand why they are trying not to compete with the last government on this, seeing how the coalition's campaign was so successful, evidently seen in the vaccination rate that we achieved. Finally, their last point was: start making mRNA vaccines in Australia—again, a process already started by the coalition government. We worked very hard to make sure that we build an mRNA vaccine facility in Victoria, the state I proudly represent, but Labor have been silent. The government have been so quiet on COVID-19. Their plan is null and void. COVID is rampant in the community, and they don't have the slightest idea what to do about it.

Do you guys over there remember saying across the chamber that we only had two jobs? Well, now you are in for a rude shock about how complex governing Australia actually is. Almost 5,000 Australians have passed away from COVID since 31 May this year. As of 22 July, there were 9,537 active COVID-19 cases and 1,013 active outbreaks in residential aged-care facilities across Australia. There have been 2,187 reported deaths in 2022 in aged-care facilities. And what is this government doing? Nothing. They should reflect on everything they said from this side of the chamber over the past two years and take a good hard look at themselves.

I cannot be the only one in this chamber to remember the Labor Party inaccurately betraying the coalition government's performance during the COVID-19 pandemic. On 8 February, Senator Gallagher said in this chamber:

There are problems in aged care, where the situation is so dire, with thousands infected with COVID, hundreds dying and staff not able to perform their jobs.

On that same day, Senator Watt, who we heard an awful lot from over the last two years on this topic, said that an aged-care facility was:

… in complete meltdown, with the deaths from COVID of 15 aged residents, and 182 residents and staff testing positive for COVID.

I read out the numbers before. They are a lot worse under this government, I can assure you of that. And I could go on. I could pull out of Hansard the records over the previous years and find any Labor senator from the previous parliament commenting on how bad the COVID outbreak was and how much more needed to be done. However, the fact of the matter is that there are currently more cases, more deaths and more outbreaks in aged-care facilities than before. And what are the Labor Party saying about it? Again, at the risk of being repetitive, nothing! The Prime Minister is silent, the health minister is silent and the aged-care minister is silent. In fact, the whole Labor Party are silent. Now that they actually have to try and solve the problems rather than just carping on, all they can come up with is silence and hope that no-one notices. I assure you that we are noticing.

This is what happens when you have a government who carry on in the chamber but do not have the slightest idea about how to actually govern. In fact, it was only in January this year that Mr Albanese was posting on social media saying:

Rapid antigen tests should be free and available. We are in a pandemic. Everybody needs access.

Then, even after the health minister warned that millions of Australians would be infected with COVID over coming weeks, the Prime Minister doubled down on his backflip to not make rapid antigen tests freely available to Australians, with the Prime Minister labelling the decision as a 'legacy of the coalition government'. This shows the Australian people one thing: this government has no idea of what they are doing. Now it might be a bit of a newsflash to Mr Albanese, but you're in government now; you can extend the free RATS if you wish. Even after the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners asked for an extension of the program—and they weren't the only professional body to do so—saying that it would put vulnerable people at greater risk if it was not continued, the Albanese government decided that they were not going to listen to the experts and went ahead and cut the program. Despite campaigning for a pandemic leave payment, the Prime Minister backflipped on his original stance and attempted to axe the payment at the first chance he got, claiming that it was not needed because all workers could just work from home. He was backed up by the Treasurer, claiming that they could not afford it. This was despite them constantly calling for more spending and increased payments while in opposition. However, once again we saw the Labor Party backflip and continue the program after pressure was applied to them by the state governments.

Now I, like many of you, watched Prime Minister Albanese as opposition leader criticising the government for not implementing mask mandates by saying:

That just shows a Prime Minister who's been prepared to play politics, as he is during this period whereby, he's too frightened of upsetting some of the hard right, who are so obsessed by not having any rules in place …

So, now you're Prime Minister, Mr Albanese, what are you frightened of? It means one of two things: either Prime Minister Morrison was doing the right thing and, as opposition leader, Mr Albanese was just playing politics, or Mr Albanese is just playing politics now. Which one is it? You can guess. But what we do know is that while those opposite don't know how to govern they do how to dance when their puppet masters in the unions and big super funds pull their strings, because the only action the Labor Party have taken so far is to remove legislative oversight from their biggest donors. During the last parliament—

Senator McKenzie:  So much for integrity and transparency.

An honourable senator interjecting—

Senator VAN:  Yes, some very good points. For three years I listened to those opposite talking about the importance of accountability. It is fascinating then that one of the Labor Party's first acts is to start working on reducing transparency and accountability for super funds. The Your Future, Your Super legislation introduced by the coalition government was vitally important and was widely welcomed for increasing transparency so that everyday Australians would be empowered with respect to their retirement savings. Now the Labor Party are disempowering everyday Australians and giving the power back to the $3 trillion industry super fund sector. Now, it might be my view—and we'll have to wait for the returns—but I'm pretty sure that we'll find that they were some of the biggest donors to the Labor Party campaign. Labor truly are the party of vested interests.

It is really an embarrassment for the government that, while we were experiencing a third wave of COVID-19, instead of directing the Treasury to look at how government could support Australians, the Labor Party was directing the Treasury to look at how it could support industry super funds get away with poor performance and mismanagement—and, also, continue to pocket their millions of dollars in donations. And now, just this week, we've heard that the government plans to remove the ABCC's powers to an absolute minimum, all so that unions such as the CFMMEU can get away with bullying, and sexist and thuggish behaviour. Industry groups and business have widely condemned this move, as it only seeks to disempower actual workers in the construction industry. What happened to the Prime Minister's promise, I ask you, to work with business and industry groups to increase productivity? It's only week 1 of parliament, and that has already gone out the window.

Continuing the theme of transparency and accountability: Mr Albanese has made another backflip on National Cabinet secrecy, opting to continue to prevent the release of documents related to meetings of the Prime Minister and state and territory leaders despite being such a harsh critic of the practice while he was in opposition. Mr Albanese confirmed that he would not be ending the practice despite his accusation that Prime Minister Morrison was obsessed with secrecy while Prime Minister. So it is also interesting to see that Mr Albanese has not fulfilled his promise of including local government in those meetings of National Cabinet.

What is most amusing is that the Labor Party campaigned on accountability, yet you only have to look at what they do and not at what they say because the two could not be further apart. This government has shown that their interests lie in standing up for their political puppetmasters and not for everyday Australians. They have shown absolutely no interest in trying to improve the lives of Australians beyond chanting a mere slogan, and Australians are beginning to pay for their mistakes. Australians need to look at what the government do and not at what they say because, after only such a short time in government, they have shown that their actions do not follow their words.