News Topic: Health and Medicare

SKY NEWS
TUESDAY 5 OCTOBER 2021

Subjects: Melbourne lockdown; mandatory vaccination; Ashes

PETER STEFANOVIC, HOST: Joining us live now is Victorian Labor MP Peter Khalil. Peter, good to see you. Thanks for your time as always. So the world’s longest lockdown. That’s now the unenviable title. Yeah, that’s the facial expression that’s pretty common coming from Victorians at the moment. So was it all worth it in the end, when at the moment Peter cases are almost as high as they’ve ever been.

PETER KHALIL, MEMBER FOR WILLS: Look, good morning Pete. It’s been obviously incredibly difficult, draining, distressing for Victorians. It’s been a really difficult 18 months with the way that we’ve had, as you just mentioned, the longest number of days in lockdown. I mean, it has prevented obviously more serious illness and more deaths. The numbers are still climbing and I think that’s partly because the fatigue that you’re seeing amongst Victorians, there’s a fair bit of non-compliance, and the Delta variant is much more infectious. Once it got out, it was very difficult to keep it suppressed, but I’m really looking forward to the opening up. And as you have pointed out and people have pointed out, vaccination or high vaccination rates are clearly the way out of these lockdowns in New South Wales, in Victoria and elsewhere. It’s absolutely everyone’s choice to get vaccinated, but I encourage everyone to get vaccinated because that is how we get out of these restrictions and these lockdowns. And we start to go to that new normal in this country.

STEFANOVIC: I mean worksites will be busy this morning is the item we just spoke about. You’ve got tens of thousands of tradies who who’ve gone out and received that first jab. Does it make you wonder what the point of those protests were in the first place?

KHALIL: Yeah, it’s a welcome announcement to have workers back on site. And I want to see other sectors opening up over the next month and a couple of months as well, obviously. We want opening up as we get those high vaccination rates. Look, it’s important that the workers on the site are safe, and you slow down the spread of the virus. You know, it was disappointing obviously for all of those workers who did the right thing and the vast majority did you know, they were sitting at home doing the right thing and they were punished from the actions of a few. So it’s good to see that the industry is opening up again and I want to see other industries as well.

STEFANOVIC: Now, conversely, I mean, just earlier, we were speaking to our reporter Melissa Christidis in Melbourne and she’s reporting that teachers are now taking legal action against the Victorian government over the COVID vaccine mandate. So it seems as though when you have one step forward, it’s another step or even two steps back.

KHALIL: Well, it’s interesting Pete. This is going to be obviously tested in the courts. I think my first principle, starting principle on this and I’ve been very consistent on it, is that vaccination should be voluntary. People should have the choice to get vaccinated, but of course I encourage everyone to get vaccinated because as we’ve said, high vaccination rates is our way out of lockdowns. And of course there are some people that would have reasonable exemptions, medical exemptions for vaccination and so on. Then we got into the next part of this, we’re looking at almost 90% of Australians getting vaccinated in another month and a half. It will be about 90% first dosage. So, those who are saying, with the exception of those with medical exemptions, who are testing this, this will get tested in the courts.

And it’s an interesting situation because there are industries where you would, it seems to be common sense. Most punters would say yeah, you know what, if you’re working at a hospital, if you’re working front line with the disabled or vulnerable people, if you’re working in aged care, if you’re working with children who are yet vaccinated, because we don’t have a vaccination approved for kids under 12, then it kind of makes sense that, to do those jobs you should have vaccination. That’s going to get tested in the courts. There are some state governments that will be probably enforcing those rules like we’re seeing happening in Victoria and other states. The Federal Government has been pretty silent on this. In fact, Scott Morrison hasn’t really wanted to weigh in at all, but again, an absence of national leadership on this, we need the Prime Minister to actually stake out exactly where he stands on these issues, because there are issues around indemnity, liability, insurance. If you’re a pub owner, we’ve mentioned this, you can stop someone coming in wearing thongs and a t-shirt or shorts. What’s the rights around a pub owner, you know, saying people have got to be vaccinated to come into their pub.

STEFANOVIC: Well, okay. Just on that point Pete, I mean, the Health Minister up here on the weekend mentioned that there’s $5,000 fines for businesses in New South Wales who flout those laws, who may inadvertently serve someone who hasn’t been vaccinated, is that fair?

KHALIL: Well, I’m a Victorian Pete. The last thing I want to do is comment about New South Wales, except I watched my one rugby league game of the year, which was the NRL Grand Final. But you know, that’s what I’m saying. It’s a matter for each state and territory, and they’re making decisions about these rules and the rights that business owners have, or don’t have, with respect to attendance of their patrons and their clients and so on. Where is the national standard on this, I guess is my question? We need to have some consistency. How people know, you know, if we do start travelling again, if I go up to Sydney, the rules are going to be different in Sydney as they are in Melbourne. I understand that, but where’s the national leadership on this? And I think we, I think Australians deserve better.

STEFANOVIC: Okay, just finally Peter. I know you’re a sporting fan. There’s some suggestions that England might pull the pin on the Ashes tour this year because of quarantine arrangements that they’re not happy that it’s too unclear. What’s your read on that?

KHALIL: Here’s a good chance for the Prime Minister of Australia to step in and clarify the quarantine arrangements for the cricketers. We did it for the Australian Open in Melbourne, as you remember earlier this year, it was a pretty strict regime. It was all worked out with Tennis Australia. Let’s get this happening, it’s not rocket science, let’s make it work. I would hate to see the Ashes cancelled, that would be tragic. Australians are deprived of these types of great sporting events. We saw the NRL Grand Final the other day, I’m not a league fan but I watched it and it was great to see the crowd there in Brisbane. I would hate to see the Ashes cancelled. I hope the Prime Minister gets his act together and sorts the quarantine out.

STEFANOVIC: It would have to be a state thing too.

KHALIL: Absolutely. Absolutely. They should all get together. Isn’t there something called a National Cabinet, Pete? They should talk about it there, it should be on the agenda.

STEFANOVIC: Peter Khalil, appreciate that. We’ll talk to you soon.

SKY NEWS
TUESDAY 21 SEPTEMBER 2021

PETER STEFANOVIC, HOST: Joining me now is Victorian Labor MP Peter Khalil. Peter, good to see you. Thanks for your time this morning. So what was your reaction to those protests yesterday?

PETER KHALIL, MEMBER FOR WILLS: Good morning Peter, good to see you too. Look obviously outrageous when you see this kind of violence, the vadalisation of an office, the union offices, and also disappointing in many respects was the actions of a very selfish few who have shut down or caused the shutdown of an entire industry for two weeks. And there’s a lot of people who are going to be at home now who had done the right thing, being punishment for the actions of those people who were at the protests. And any type of violent protest, we have to always absolutely condemn. People have the right to protest, people have a right to their civil liberties, but when it descends into this kind of violence, it’s just unacceptable.

STEFANOVIC: Sorry, Peter yeah. Particularly when, as Bill Shorten said this morning, that a lot of them weren’t even Tradies. They just went to the budget shop and just got themselves a cheap high vis vest, and wanted to go and have a fight.

KHALIL: So Pete what we’ve seen here, but look, there might’ve been some union members there, but a lot of them, as you said, were outsiders, and people in that anti-vax protest movement who we’ve seen with previous lockdown protests. In fact, just a couple of days earlier, there was violence against police by a lot of those people that went to this one as well. So then you’ve got this disturbing kind of undercurrent where people are going to these protests just to engage in violence, that you’ve seen there. So, it has to be condemned at every level and it has been.

STEFANOVIC: Well, Bill Shorten called the ‘man baby Nazis’ this morning, which was an interesting term. Have you got anything more colorful than that?

KHALIL: Well I don’t know if I’ll be about as colourful as Bill, but I will tell you that there is this unsettling and disturbing kind of connection to some of the far right wing extremists in this protest movement. Of course it runs across the political spectrum, but some of those neo-Nazi types or those far right types, probably have infiltrated some of this as well.

STEFANOVIC: Yeah, I mean, and so by that rationale, do you expect that to continue while these shutdowns are in place Pete?

KHALIL: Well, I hope not Peter. I think as restrictions ease around the country, that kind of will take the heat out of that as well and there’ll be less reason for that kind of protest. But I’m sure they’ll continue at some point, because there is this undercurrent as I said, very small minority in society who are manipulating some people who have genuine concerns about vaccinations or whatever who want to protest but actually are being manipulated and used in many ways for more violent things. And that’s something that I know that the security have been looking at very closely for many years now.

STEFANOVIC: Yeah and given that so many of these protestors were supposedly not even Tradies yesterday, do you think that there was a need to shut down, or at least pause, the construction industry for two weeks. Was that the right call?

KHALIL: Yeah look that is obviously a decision made by the State Government that you’re referring to, the Victorian State Government. They had some data that showed that, to give you a percentage of cases were coming out of construction sites and so they made that call based on their health advice. I will say also [inaudible], there is a debate around vaccination and mandatory vaccination for these work sites. This is a debate we are having as a country, and we need to have as a country. My starting principle is that, yes I encourage everyone to get vaccinated because it’s our way out of here. We want people to have a voluntary vaccination, we want to incentivise them to get vaccinated and we think that’s the best way to get high vaccination rates. But if you are forcing people, and this is the other thing, people feel what they’ve been forced. There is an ethical question usually being made by State and Federal governments, and by businesses, that they have to actually assure that their workforce is vaccinated and that is a complicated process. But Peter, as good looking as you are, when you go to the pub on a Saturday afternoon, if you’re wearing thongs and shorts, the pub owner has the right not to let you in, mate. So do they have the right or the authority to say that they only want people who are vaccinated and using the QR code. These are questions that we’ve got to answer.

STEFANOVIC: Well, thank you for the compliment, Pete and likewise might I say. Peter Khalil, good to chat. I’ll talk to you again soon.

House of Representatives 26/08/2021

Mr KHALIL (Wills) (13:36): Our first big night out with friends; that first camping trip; that first overseas trip; that first day of uni, or of TAFE or of starting your first job; those rites of passage such as 16th, 18th and 21st birthdays; the last days of school, year 12 graduations and schoolies; or simply just catching up with friends—all those moments that, dare I say it, older Australians look back on fondly—are, for a generation of young Australians, moments missed and lost. Dreams have been put on hold, sacrificed to keep all of us in the broader community safe.

Too rarely has the impact of COVID-19 on young people been properly recognised. Young people are less likely to become seriously ill from COVID-19 but they have felt the full impacts of this pandemic nonetheless. Young people were the first to lose their jobs. They have endured the biggest disruptions to their education in modern history, not to mention the overwhelming mental health impacts of lockdowns. Young workers are also the least likely group to have received financial support for their lost work.

But I am continually amazed by the perseverance and optimism of young people. They have come in droves to get vaccinated as soon as they have become eligible, doing their bit to increase our vaccination rates and to get us out of lockdowns. So I want to thank all young people in my electorate and around Australia for doing their bit—for getting vaccinated and for all their sacrifices that have kept us all safe.

SKY NEWS FIRST EDITION WITH PETER STEFANOVIC
TUESDAY, 24 August 2021

SUBJECT: Vaccine rollout; COVID outbreaks around Australia; lockdowns

PETER STEFANOVIC, HOST: We go live now to the Labor MP Peter Khalil. Peter, good to see you, thanks for your time this morning, just on Victoria, first of all it seems as though you’re at the start, again, of what New south Wales experienced, which ultimately led to the virus being out of control. Do you fear that the Delta variant is now out of control in Victoria?

PETER KHALIL, MEMBER FOR WILLS: Well, I don’t know Pete – good morning, by the way, I should say, first of all I hope you’re well – but we are at a tipping point in Victoria. There are restrictions here, which are meant to try and get on top of this outbreak of the Delta variant here in Victoria. And we hope we don’t get to where New South Wales is or where New South Wales currently is because these are tough. These restrictions are tough, the lockdown is tough and we are really, Victorians are feeling a lot of pressure. There’s a lot of mental health issues. So I think the broader issue though, Pete, is that we are obviously taking these actions in Victoria by the state government to try and take, get control over this outbreak. The key that we’re all talking about here is at what point do we start to ease restrictions? It was the Doherty modeling that has been reported at 70%. It would have been great to be able to get to open up at that 70% from a much lower base of cases, for example, than you have in New South Wales, and I think that’s what the Victorian government is trying to get to.

STEFANOVIC: Yeah, but it doesn’t matter. And you’ve seen this overnight, the Doherty Institute saying it doesn’t matter whether it’s 30 cases a day, or whether it’s hundreds of cases a day, you’re on the same trajectory. And ultimately you will hit your peak faster if you’ve got a higher case load. So is this an example of how we can, and we should move to the next level and ease restrictions from 70%.

KHALIL: So, a couple of points about this and you raise a very, very important question. When you get to that 70 or 80% based on that Doherty modeling, what does matter though, is an intervening period where you still got unvaccinated population, the Delta getting out of hand. And we’re seeing obviously, people dying in New South Wales. So Victoria is trying to avoid that situation. I mean, New South Wales under lockdown, we’re under lockdown, but we’re trying to avoid the higher death rate. If you look at the statistics in the UK, for example, back in January, this year, there were 30 – 40,000 cases a day. The fatality rate was quite high. It was a thousand, 1500 deaths a day. Now with the Delta variant, with a vaccinated population or adult population of the UK, you’re looking at 30,000 cases a day, but the fatality rate much lower, about a hundred, sometimes 50 or 60 people. So there’s a question of tolerance about whether Australia can tolerate opening up and having a high number of cases, but a much lower fatality rate, which is what gives what you get with a more vaccinated population. But there’s a couple of unanswered questions which Scott Morrison needs to deal with. One is children. When are you going to vaccinate children? Because parents –

STEFANOVIC: Well the ATAGI advice on that is coming on Friday.

KHALIL: Well, I mean, that is very important. And then also booster shots. And again, this goes back to his inability to actually get enough supply.

STEFANOVIC: What do you mean? Well, booster shots are going to be coming next year, at some point. I think the priority is to be able to get the jabs into people’s arms first of all.

KHALIL: Well here’s the point though, you look at Israel’s statistics Pete and they are 78% fully vaccinated in the adult population. Their cases are going up again with a Delta variant, but half of those go around half of those cases are vaccinated people who are getting the Delta variant and of those, the many, many of those are the older Israelis over 60, who got the vaccination very early on in January. So the efficacy starts to wear off. So they need booster shots. They’re getting the booster shots again, Scott Morrison should be planning for all of this. Where is his plan for booster shots? So you’re talking about next year, that might not be good enough for older Australians.

STEFANOVIC: So just to be clear: do you want to see restrictions begin to ease from 70% vaccination rates as per the Doherty Institute modelling?

KHALIL: I think we all want restrictions to ease and the question is going to be whether Scott Morrison has planned well enough to get enough vaccination, to get children vaccinated, to get up to the 70, 80% to get booster shots and supply in to older Australians where the efficacy might be wearing off, if they got the vaccination earlier in the year.

STEFANOVIC: Do you believe, like the Prime Minister said yesterday, we’ve got to change the mindset.

KHALIL: Well, Australia, I mean, we’re going to be in a patchy place here because some states like WA obviously have no COVID at all. So the question is going to be, if Australia opens up and New South Wales is obviously heading in that direction and other states do so (Victoria might) when we get on top of this Delta and so on what’s going to happen? Are we going to have hard borders across states again to prevent –

STEFANOVIC: Well that would be a question for the premiers, wouldn’t it? Have they gone rogue, has Queensland and WA’s Premiers gone rogue?

KHALIL: We have different Premiers doing different things and all sorts of variables that are different in every state. It is a difficult proposition. I think, as a federal MP, what I would like to see obviously is us getting to a point where we have very, very high vaccination rates up to 70, 80%, children vaccinated, booster shots in place. And again, making sure that the federal government shows some national leadership because they have failed with the slow vaccine roll out. I don’t want to see another failure with respect to vaccinations for children, or boosters for older Australians who now may become more vulnerable near the end of the year, early next year. And then to start to ease restrictions. It’s still going to be, has to be, public health efforts: track and tracing, quarantine, isolation and all of that, to try and manage the Delta. But I don’t personally believe we can have a zero COVID situation. It’s just not possible. If you look at the global examples.

STEFANOVIC: Yeah, okay. I think you’re right too. Peter Khalil, appreciate that.

Federation Chamber 23/06/2021

Mr KHALIL (Wills) (18:33): This motion purports to celebrate the government’s $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy, with the space sector and industry a big part of that. There is a slight bit of hypocrisy in all of this. The motion notes that space is one of the six national priorities in the government’s manufacturing plan. We all know and have heard that the Australian space industry has a proud history. We have been part of every deep space mission NASA has ever flown, going back to 1957, with the establishment of the Woomera facility in South Australia. In 1962, the CSIRO Parkes telescope supported NASA’s Mariner 2 mission. And we all know about Parkes and Honeysuckle Creek, which played a vital role, and a famous role, in humanity’s great adventure to the moon. I think we all agree we want to see Australia be part of the exploration of space in the 21st century, be a leader in this space, be part of the future and be able to participate in a trillion dollar industry which will provide enormous opportunity for Australians, particularly our STEM professionals.

But let’s take a closer look at the basis of the motion, which was the $1.5 billion Modern Manufacturing Strategy the government announced in October last year. They promised that this investment would go to six key target areas: resources technology and critical minerals processing; food and beverage; medical products; recycling and clean energy; defence; and space. They promised that this program would spend $1.5 billion over 10 years and create 380,000 direct and indirect jobs. The Prime Minister promised to spend $48 million to create 2,600 new manufacturing jobs in the 2020-21 financial year—this financial year; the one ending in seven days. The Prime Minister has actually spent $79 million—wow, that sounds good; it’s more than the $48 million he promised. He will have spent it by 1 July, but guess what? With that $79 million he created 78 manufacturing jobs. That’s more than a million dollars per job. Don’t worry, Prime Minister, you’ve still got seven days left to create the other 2,522 manufacturing jobs to reach your government’s target!

But we shouldn’t be surprised by this because this government doesn’t really believe in backing Australian manufacturing. It’s actually not in their DNA. The fact is that, since this government took office with Prime Minister Tony Abbott, we have lost 90,000 jobs in Australian manufacturing. Let that sink in—90,000 pairs of boots have been hung up. The government dared—goaded—car manufacturers to leave Australian shores. And they did. Hundreds of workers in my electorate of Wills lost their jobs when the Broadmeadows Ford factory closed in 2016. The Department of Industry, Science, Energy and Resources’s own estimate showed that 50,000 Australian manufacturing jobs were lost just last year—50,000 jobs gone under their watch in one year. The government’s own budget forecast papers have said that there’s a cut to real wages over the next four years. For a manufacturing worker that is a cut in real wages of $7,800. There are fewer jobs, lower wages and no vision for the future. They can put up as many motions as they want, but this government’s record is one of neglect.

Unlike this government, Labor have a vision for a future made in Australia. We want Australia to be a country that makes things. We have a plan to do it. A Labor government will deliver a $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund for projects that will create secure, well-paid jobs, rebuild our local manufacturing industry and capacity, and make Australia more competitive and self-sufficient. A Labor government will deliver an Australian Skills Guarantee to make sure one in 10 jobs on major federal infrastructure projects are given to apprentices, trainees or cadets. A Labor government will make more trains in Australia with our National Rail Manufacturing Plan and will ensure every dollar of federal funding spent on rail projects creates local jobs. A Labor government will deliver a Defence Industry Development Strategy to ensure that the $270 billion invested in the sector uses local workers. Only Labor will deliver the investment and leadership to rebuild Australian manufacturing because we actually believe in it. We believe in creating good and secure jobs and we believe in making Australia more competitive and self-sufficient.

House of Representatives 21/06/2021

Mr KHALIL (Wills) (17:52): I rise to speak on the Aged Care and Other Legislation Amendment (Royal Commission Response No. 1) Bill 2021. It was Scott Morrison, the current Prime Minister, who cut aged care by $1.7 billion when he was Treasurer. And in this recent budget the government spent, spent and spent to paper over their political problems ahead of the upcoming election. They spent to cover their political tracks, not to invest in aged care or to enact fully the much-needed reforms and recommendations from the royal commission. This is an aged-care crisis which we see playing out before us. It’s a system that’s in crisis. It has been let down by years of coalition cuts and mismanagement.

We’ve seen again in recent weeks that, due to the embarrassingly low wages and number of hours on offer, workers are compelled to work in multiple care homes. In November last year, the Morrison government returned to a position of allowing workers to work in multiple homes. They made that decision after it was suspended for a period of time because of the pandemic. Once again, they were shirking their responsibilities and not thinking through the consequences. From the very early days of the pandemic last year, we saw the horrifying scenes in countries across the world. In many countries the elderly bore the brunt of the deadly virus. There were horrible pictures from Italy, Spain and other countries. In April last year, in Sydney—in our country—the Newmarch House outbreak took the lives of more than a dozen residents.

We saw this; we saw it play out before us and we can’t say that we weren’t warned. The government should have learnt from this, yet the coalition government dragged their feet in taking the steps necessary in the aged-care facilities, which are under their jurisdiction. They didn’t order enough PPE, they didn’t help aged-care facilities to prepare or give them practical advice on infection control. They didn’t mandate commonsense controls, like limits on workers working across multiple homes, and they didn’t put in mask mandates.

In my electorate of Wills, the St Basil’s aged-care facility saw 183 coronavirus cases and 44 deaths—44 deaths in one aged-care facility—and there were more than 650 aged-care deaths in total during Victoria’s second wave. Aged care is a federal responsibility—we know that. The majority of the deaths that occurred occurred in private aged-care centres, which are under the responsibility of the federal government. At the height of Victoria’s second wave there were 1,923 cases in private facilities; in the public aged-care facilities, the Victorian state government run facilities, there were six.

More than a year on, the federal government have botched the vaccine rollout, and aged-care residents are still at risk. How is this possible? It’s been more than three months since our vaccine rollout started, yet only 3.3 per cent of Australians are fully vaccinated against this deadly virus. In the United States they are offering the Pfizer and Moderna vaccines to anyone over the age of 12. In the UK, I think some 59 per cent of UK citizens are fully vaccinated. And here we are struggling to get the vaccine to people who are in their 80s and their 90s. We’re still struggling to get the vaccine to people who work within aged care. We’re still struggling to get the vaccine to frontline workers in health care.

The minister responsible was forced to admit that he has no idea how many aged-care workers have been vaccinated. He couldn’t get that number. With all the power of the government departments under his control he couldn’t get that number. Well, it turns out that less than 10 per cent of employees have been fully vaccinated—and it was actually left to Victoria to do a five-day blitz to vaccinate healthcare workers. Yet the minister says that he’s comfortable about how the rollout is going. That is what he said in Senate estimates—he’s comfortable about how the rollout is going. Where there is no comfort for the families who are grieving, the minister is comfortable—because this government and its ministers won’t take responsibility. They won’t show leadership. They can’t demonstrate real leadership, when the country so desperately needs them to do so.

It’s is easy to be distracted by numbers and statistics, but it’s important that we remember that in each aged-care facility across this country there are people that we have a responsibility to look after. They are our friends, our mothers, our fathers and our grandparents. One of my constituents, Patrick, contacted my office just last week. His mother resides in a private aged-care facility regulated by the federal government. His mother has dementia and, despite her agreeing to receive the vaccine, on the actual day when they came to give her the vaccine she was confused and, in her confusion, declined the jab. She didn’t understand what she was being told. When Patrick found out, he was told that she would be given her first dose when vaccine administrators came back in a few weeks with the second dose. Yet on that day they didn’t even try to give her the first dose. Patrick is now having to go through this bureaucratic nightmare just to get his elderly mother vaccinated, and it’s been an uphill battle. The government’s advice to Patrick was that he try to get her to a GP or get a GP to come out to the facility or for her to go to one of the hubs at the Exhibition Centre to get the shot. Can you imagine an elderly woman with dementia trying to navigate the Exhibition Centre in Melbourne? Is that really the best we can do?

A future Labor government will actually deliver the care that is worthy of elderly Australians—the people who built this country; the people whose shoulders we stand on. We’ll do this by ensuring that every dollar spent in aged care goes towards employing a guaranteed minimum level of nurses, assistants and carers and towards daily needs like decent food, rather than lining the pockets of the more unscrupulous providers. We will also take the steps necessary to make sure that the aged-care sector is properly funded and is investing for the long term as our population ages.

Providing the best care possible to our elderly shouldn’t be controversial, yet it is. On this side of House we believe in properly funding our aged-care system. On this side of the House we believe in keeping our elderly Australians and most vulnerable people safe. On this side of the House we believe in investing in the long term to ensure all Australians know that they will be able to retire and grow old safely, comfortably and with dignity. Based on all the evidence that we have seen over the past 14 months, as we look past all the PR spin and bluster from the Morrison government and his ministers, I don’t think I can say the same for the coalition.

House of Representatives 03/06/2021

Mr KHALIL (Wills) (16:10): Victorians are doing it really tough under this lockdown. I and many of my Victorian colleagues are heading back to Melbourne tonight. I’ll be kicking the footy with the kids, taking very long walks, playing board games and doing all the things that Victorians are going to do to get through this lockdown. But we all know there is a huge mental health impact on all Victorians as we go through this lockdown.

I want to say in this place that Victorians are Australians, too. Victorians need a Prime Minister that doesn’t have to be forced, pushed and cajoled into providing support, whose first instinct is not to abandon Victorians but to come immediately to their assistance. Victorians need a Prime Minister who will take responsibility willingly, not shirk responsibility shamefully. Victorians need a Treasurer who is not mean-spiritedly refusing, initially, to provide any emergency funding for small businesses and workers in Victoria. As I’m sure my colleagues do, I welcome the announcement of support made just now by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, but why did it take them a week? Why did it take the state government, the federal Labor opposition and the people arguing and begging for them to step up to push them into a position they should have taken immediately of their own accord? If Team Australia means anything to them, surely it means providing support to fellow Australians in Victoria, not arguing against it for an entire week?

But we don’t have such leadership. We have a Prime Minister whose first instinct is to pick a fight, to play politics, to see where the politics takes him, to wander wherever the political winds blow and then, and only then, be forced into the right position—not because he cares but because he realises he has to cover his political tracks. Those opposite have to spend taxpayer dollars to patch over their political problems, not because it’s an investment in the economy or the future of this nation or that it’s the right thing to do. Nowhere is this clearer than when you look at the government’s two fundamental responsibilities, which they continue to shirk: federal quarantine and the vaccine rollout.

On quarantine: it’s actually in section 51 of our Constitution. It’s their responsibility. From the beginning of this crisis, there was an expectation that the federal government would come up with the resources, the planning and the policy to set up federal quarantine facilities that are fit for purpose. They have not done so. This goes beyond shirking responsibility. This is an egregious abdication of responsibility to the nation. The federal government could have set up safer quarantine facilities like Howard Springs in the Northern Territory. Look at the stats: Howard Springs, zero outbreaks; hotel quarantine, 21.

On vaccines: I said last year—and I wasn’t alone—we need to have contingencies in place. Buy six or seven vaccines. Get the supply right. Sign the contracts. If they all work, that’s great, fantastic; we’ve got a surplus. We can help our Pacific neighbours with a surplus. We can be leaders in the region. But it was pretty clear-cut that not all of them would work. We knew that. When those opposite did start to take responsibility for the rollout, they just stuffed it up. I can only describe it as incompetence. They told us four million Australians would be vaccinated by 1 April. They missed their target by 3.4 million.

This MPI says that the government have no plan for the nation. But it’s so much more than that. They have no vision. They have no care. They have no commitment beyond saving their own political skins. That’s all they care about. When they do spend and make commitments, like they did today, it’s to cover up a political problem. Australians deserve better than this mob. A federal Labor government will build dedicated quarantine facilities in every state and territory, fix the vaccine rollout, invest in manufacturing mRNA vaccines like Pfizer in Australia, and start a mass public information campaign, because we actually care for the people that we represent. Australians deserve better than this mob.

House of Representatives 24/05/2021

Mr KHALIL (Wills) (13:33): Never before in our Federation has it been illegal for Australians to come home, but a few weeks ago this government made it so for Australians stuck in India. It wasn’t just wrong; it was outrageous and unprecedented. The fact is that the Prime Minister has failed on his own promise to have all Australians home by Christmas. He overpromised and underdelivered. It was a cynical distraction from the fact that he had over a year to deliver a federal quarantine system fit for purpose and he botched it. Instead, he cruelly abandoned thousands of Australians going through the most difficult time of their lives.

I welcome, of course, the decision to restart repatriation flights from India. But while attention has been focused on the situation in India, next door Nepal has also experienced a huge surge in cases. The latest figures, released just yesterday, show 8,591 daily cases. Hospitals are overflowing. Beds and drugs are in short supply. There’s not enough oxygen. We need to be doing more than just getting our citizens home. As a middle power with responsibility to lead in our region, our nation needs to support, step up and help our Indo-Pacific neighbours. So I welcome the government’s support for PPE and testing kits for Nepal. But if they hadn’t cut the foreign aid budget, maybe during a time of global crisis they’d actually be able to give more, support more and provide more leadership in the region.

SKY NEWS

TUESDAY, 04 MAY 2021

SUBJECTS: India COVID-19 outbreak; Border closures; Federal quarantine failures.

PETER STEFANOVIC, HOST: Well, joining me live now is Labor MP, Peter Khalil. Peter, Good to see you, thanks for joining us this morning.

So we’ve heard from the Prime Minister. Well, we haven’t, but other places have, and he’s mentioned that it’s likely that repatriation flights out of India will resume on the 15th of May not before then, but what do you make of that? It seems as though that won’t be extended, despite the huge number of cases that continue to emerge out of India.

PETER KHALIL, MEMBER FOR WILLS: Well, good morning Pete. Look, I think the point I’ve made is that I thought that the decision by the Prime Minister was a poor decision because frankly it is either ham fisted or cynical. Well, because you could have set up federal quarantine facilities. You could use Christmas Island or Howard Springs. It should have been done a year ago and never before in our Federation has a government, a Commonwealth Government, made it illegal for Australian citizens to come home. At the height of the spikes in the US, the UK, Italy, this decision was not made to put a $66,000 fine or up to five years jail term for Australians wanting to come home. And I mean, the other thing I would raise too, is that if he had actually put in the effort and the resources into federal quarantine facilities that were safe, you could have people coming in. More Australians coming in doing their 14-day quarantines in a safe place, a facility that’s set up by the federal government. He didn’t do that. And it’s not like we’re Nostradamus here mate. Many, many people said the federal government has this responsibility and he botched it or squibbed it.

STEFANOVIC: Well, all the state leaders though decided they’d take care of quarantine back in March last year.

KHALIL: Well, that’s interesting that you say that because the State Leaders said they would do so with the assumption that the Federal Government would also come in and start to take responsibility for federal quarantine and that’s why they started all the hotel quarantine set up. Now we know that there’s been problems with hotel quarantine. My question has always been why is Scott Morrison averse to actually taking responsibility. Why is he trying to mitigate his risk in all of this? The Federal Government is responsible for quarantine.

STEFANOVIC: Wouldn’t you agree that hotel quarantine for the most part, less than 1% of cases have leaked out into the community, but for the most part, more than 99%, hasn’t it been successful?

KHALIL: They’ve done for the most part, a very, very good job, the States and Territories, absolutely! But we are also talking about numbers and logistics here. I don’t understand why Scott Morrison didn’t call out the ADF to support this effort. In fact, I remember last year, I think it might’ve been a senior ADF leader had said we could get this up and running in a couple of weeks. They’ve got the expertise, the ADF was used in Southeast Asia Pacific for humanitarian relief and disaster. They can be called out to support the civilian government in times of crisis, which this obviously is. That wasn’t done. I’ll just go back to the other point that never before has a Federation in our democracy made it illegal for Australian citizens to return home. It’s outrageous! It’s a distraction from the fact that Morrison has failed. He’s botched it. He overpromised and he undelivered. He said that he’d have all Australians home by Christmas and completely failed on that, on his own benchmark.

STEFANOVIC: But just for clarity purposes here, did you support a pause in the flights? Just the flights part of it. Did you support, do you support that?

KHALIL: Yeah well, the pause in the flights is fine. I mean, this is going to happen. If you have a serious situation and commercial airlines will make their decisions. It’s all on the government to pause repatriation flights, cause they haven’t got any. Where are those? That was another issue! Why aren’t we repatriating our people, our resident citizens like the US, the UK and many other countries have done. We didn’t even do that. I mean, there has been a complete pushing away of responsibility by the Morrison Government. Give all the risks to the States and territories. You said that they’ve done a fairly good job, good on them. But when is he going to step up? When is he going to be the Prime Minister of Australia and stop playing political games? Then he has this really clever thing where he says, “oh, well, there should be no politics in the pandemic”. He’s been playing politics from the very beginning. And that’s the disappointment I have because this is about the national interest and the precedent that is set with respect to laws against Australian citizens.

STEFANOVIC: Okay. Peter Khalil, got to un, but good to chat. We’ll talk to you again soon.

Sky News First Edition

20/04/2021

Peter Stefanovic: Welcome back to the first edition. Thank you for your company this morning. Live now to Labor MP, Peter Khalil for the day’s top stories. Peter, just want to ask you about this national cabinet. Good morning to you, by the way. This plan to speed up the rollout of vaccines for people over the age of 50. Now the States and the Prime Minister have said that they want to do this in principle. What does that even mean? Is that kind of half in, half out or what?

Peter Khalil: Good morning, Pete, look, I think the PM and the government have made that classic mistake of over promising and under delivering, you know, they promised 4 million vaccines in arms by the end of March, we’ve really only had 1.6 million delivered. There’s also this question around, they’ve said they’ve got 4.6 million delivered, but where are the other 2.7 million doses? I know some reporting talked about some of them being set aside for contingency for the second jab and so on. Then you’ve got this delay that frankly is going to really jeopardize us rejoining the world community when travel opens up with vaccine passports, presumably, because we’re not going to be fully vaccinated. Well, it looks like now not until 2022. So it’s great that they want to speed it up. He’s now just re-energising the national cabinet, where was all this energy six months ago? You know, you’ve got to really ask questions about their competency in delivering and making sure that vaccine rollout worked efficiently and effectively.

Stefanovic: Well, the problem is that confidence has been shot for a lot of people. So, I mean, despite best intentions to speed things up, that’s no guarantee that it’s actually going to happen.

Khalil: That’s true. And look, I’m not, no one’s Nostradamus here and you know, we all can’t really predict the future. But I mean, I recall even saying, mate, might’ve been on this program last year in September, and it was kind of a warning it’s like, do not put all your eggs in one basket, do not just rely on three or four vaccines. Make sure you go out, like the Europeans have done, and get seven or eight sourced and make sure you have a lot of contingency, because you never know some of these vaccines might fall over at the trial stage or AstraZeneca might have a few issues as it does with under fifties. So make sure you’re actually prepared. And yet they didn’t do that, they went with a smaller number of options. You know, this is about the national interest. Peter, I’m trying not to be political about this, on the political front it’s like they’ve gotta to do their job better, basically.

Stefanovic: Onto, still with Scott Morrison. He’s done a speech last night and he’s sort of outlined a bit more of a plan or a path towards net zero in 2050. There is going to be the agriculture carve out, which is not in itself entirely new. There had been suggestions of that according to Michael McCormack, a few months ago. No new taxes as well. Do you think this can all be achieved?

Khalil: Well, Peter, the climate Wars as they’ve been called has been toxic for Australian politics for so long. Again, we’re trying to be non-partisan this morning. We want to actually resolve this. You know, you’re seeing the Biden administration going very hard on addressing climate change. There’s going to be a climate summit with 40 world leaders. So I’m asking myself, the question is, is Scott Morrison trying to sort of catch up a little bit with what’s happening and trying to pick up on the zeitgeist internationally? Not sure. But, let’s make the commitment to net zero by 2050. Let’s make sure that we’re actually then working out policies on how to get there, which he’s just started to last night. He’s getting a bit closer to that. But the fact is, he’s avoided actually saying we’re committed to net zero by 2050, because it’ll kick off a civil war in his party room. You know, so many people in the Coalition –

Stefanovic: But back on Biden, I mean, it’s that argument though, which kind of stands up, they pulled out of Paris. So isn’t it a bit rich for them to all of a sudden, you know, be banging on or putting extra pressure on countries to achieve this result?

Khalil: Well, that’s a good question. “They”, I mean, I think you mean by that the U S, “they” was actually the Trump administration that pulled out, not the Biden administration. The Biden administration throughout the campaign made very clear that they’re committed to renewable energy and renewable energy infrastructure. There’s a $1.9 trillion commitment to renewables and green power. And he’s following up on that commitment by working with the international community. John Kerry, the Envoy for Climate Change, he had a very successful meeting with these Chinese counterparts. So they’re working together, which is by the way, a very good, bright spot in what has been a lot of tension in the US/China relationship, so that’s welcomed! And Australia needs to actually be part of this! We have a great opportunity to have a green revolution, green manufacturing, renewable energy infrastructure that will power us into the 21st century and I don’t think we’re taking that opportunity under the current government.

Stefanovic: Okay, 30 seconds left Peter. Just your reaction to the Royal Commission into Veteran Suicide.

Khali: Oh, thank you Scott Morrison for finally agreeing to announce this Royal Commission on Veterans Suicide. You know, family members of the vets who’ve committed suicide, the community has been calling on this for years now. Labor has been trying to push this forward. Morrison has had to be dragged, kicking and screaming to announce this. It’s the right thing to do. It’s an important acknowledgement of what is a huge problem. We’ve had 41 diggers killed in action. We’ve had 419 who’ve committed suicide in the last decade or so. That needs to be addressed and there needs to be systems and structures in place to address it, and the Royal Commission will get us there. So it’s good news that he finally announced it.

Stefanovic: Okay. Peter Khalil, thanks for your time. Talk to you soon.