Yesterday I spoke in the Senate about the lack of a plan to live with and master COVID19 rather than hiding behind advice from bureaucrats in the health departments. There is no guarantee when or if there will be a vaccine. Where is your plan Prime Minister?
Transcript
I know that there are many grieving families, fearful families and concerned families. I raised the fact that in my correspondence to both the prime minister and to the premier of Queensland.
I expressed concern over their use of insufficient and flawed modelling to lock us all away and cause untold damage to our economy, businesses and jobs. Their responses to my letters avoided addressing the real issues.
Yes. If the federal government and state governments had learned, as I suggested in March from nations like Taiwan and promptly adopted rigorous testing combined with strict isolation of their sick, aged and vulnerable then many Australians could have stayed at work with minimal economic disruption and better health.
The difference is that Taiwan had a plan and relied on solid data. And as a result, Taiwan had seven deaths in the time we’ve had 517. They have a similar population to ours in terms of total population. Yet they are under greater threat because of the highly densely populated country and they’re closer to China.
The honourable John Houston in the Sydney Morning Herald, recently referred to quote, “planning or the lack of it has been the great failure of the Morrison government. It has been building over years of neglect and poor policy, but now it has been laid bare by both COVID-19 and the Royal commission.”
Queensland’s own chief health officer, Dr. Jeanette young, has stated this past week that she is only looking at the health issues. Mr. Acting deputy president. And this is very concerning. Who is looking after the big picture for us all? What about mental health, economic health, jobs, families, businesses?
The Queensland Premier referred us to the website location of her data. We checked there’s no relevant data, weak premier, irresponsibly abdicating, again, hiding behind the chief health officer, abdicating her duties. The Morrison government and the Queensland government need to both step up and to demonstrate leadership and to tell the truth.
They need to show us the data and the plan across all aspects of managing our way out of this pandemic and the resulting recession, and in the process, ensuring security for all Australians.
