MARK DREYFUS MP

This is a government that lives in terror of what a powerful, independent, and transparent anti-corruption commission would reveal to the Australian people.

The Morrison Government had two jobs and it has failed at them both.

It had a job of getting quarantine right. It is a Constitutional responsibility of the Commonwealth and the Commonwealth has ducked that responsibility from the get go in this pandemic.

All members of the Committee support the re-listing of Hizballah’s External Security Organisation as a terrorist organisation because of its record of directly and indirectly engaging in and supporting terrorist acts.

However, as the Committee did in June 2018, we are again asking why the Government has decided to confine the re-listing of Hizballah only to its External Security Organisation.

The willingness of this Government to let our history rot rather than implement the Tune Review’s recommendations to preserve it shows how far his party has strayed from the traditions on which the party was founded. 

I call on the Government to stop trashing that legacy and do the work needed to preserve our nation’s history.

Once again we are seeing the consequences of the Morrison Government’s failures on quarantine and the COVID vaccination rollout.

Labor members of the Committee join with our colleagues on the Committee in welcoming the Government’s decision to list the Sonnenkrieg Division.

This marks the first time that a right-wing extremist organisation has been listed as a terrorist organisation in Australia.

For 50 years Labor has fought for the right of all Australians to access decent, affordable health care and for every one of those 50 years the Liberals have fought to tear that down.

And here we are, again, with Medicare again under attack and once again, it's the people right across Australia, including in my electorate of Isaacs, who will pay.

Twelve months on, COVID still threatens aged care residents and we have a Federal Government failing to protect aged care workers and the people they are caring for.

What we're witnessing right now is a government that believes that it can act with complete impunity. The Prime Minister appears to believe that, no matter how disgraceful his conduct or the conduct of his ministers gets, time will march on, journalists will move on and people will forget. It's incumbent on all of us to ensure that the Prime Minister is wrong about that. Australia needs a powerful and independent national anti-corruption commission, and only a Labor government will deliver one.

The Uluru Statement from the Heart is an extraordinary act of generosity, friendship and reconciliation. It is a gift we must accept in that same spirit, for the benefit of all our people