Thursday, 4 August 2022

Federal government

Mr ATKINSON (Eastern Metropolitan) (10:49): The incoming federal government obviously has a great many challenges on its plate, and I certainly extend my congratulations to the Prime Minister and his team on their election. Can I indicate that there are two areas that I would like to see the federal government tackle as a matter of urgency in the interests of Victoria and indeed the nation. The first one is the visa system. Our visa system in Australia is totally broken. It is not working for anyone. It is not working for refugees, it is not working for business migrants, it is not working for casual employees, it is not working for international students and it is not working for family reunion. It is a broken system, it needs to be fixed and it needs to be fixed urgently. I urge the government to tackle that.

The second thing that I urge the federal government to do is to convene a royal commission into the COVID experience, and I do not seek it as a witch-hunt. I seek it as an opportunity to explore what we did right as much as what we have done wrong, and I seek an opportunity to approach it on a national level so that we can look at some of the international statistics and experience as well as what we have done in Australia. There is no doubt that there are issues in terms of the vaccination program and issues in terms of some of the curtailment of civil liberties during the period. They are the negatives. But there are also some positives to explore and certainly some real lessons in terms of workforce and so forth that we do need to tackle. A royal commission is warranted, and now.