SUSAN TEMPLEMAN, MEMBER FOR MACQUARIE: I'm Susan Templeman, the Member from Macquarie. You've just heard Senator Watt talking about the failure of this government to spend any of the money in its found that's put aside to support and protect communities that have been through disasters. Well, my community has just been through its second, its third disaster, actually, in 18 months. So we had the fires 18 months ago, we then had a flood, and now we've had an even bigger flood in the Hawkesbury. And yet not a single cent of the money that's set aside for natural disasters, to mitigate against them, has been spent in my communities. Now, there was always a flaw in this fund in my eyes, and that was that you couldn't spend it on a natural disaster until after the natural disaster occurred.

I never got that bit. But what we've got now in the Hawkesbury, we have roads that have been absolutely devastated, there are massive holes in them. These are exactly the projects that this government needs to spend some of this money on. My community will be horrified with the findings that have come out that this fund, all it's doing is racking up interest; it's earning money, it's not investing anything in our communities. The people of Lower Portland, the people of Upper Colo, the people of
Cornwallis, all of whom have their lives in absolute limbo while governments decide what's going to happen to repair their roads, are crying out for some investment. And this fund is exactly the place that we need to see the government invest in my community. Right now, there are people who instead of driving five kilometres to take their kids to the bus stop, have to do a 30 kilometre trip on dirt roads, just to get to the bus stop, because for nine weeks nothing's being done to remediate or stabilise their road. That is not good enough.

And we need this done with speed. It needs to be a combined effort from the local councils, state government, and the Federal Government can't just sit back at a Federal Government level and say, 'Oh, well, we're waiting to see what people ask for'. The Federal Government needs to be absolutely engaged in the recovery in the Hawkesbury. They can't do what they've done ever since I've known them and that is step back. You know, the Prime Minister didn't hold a hose during the fires. If the Prime Minister doesn't hold a hose during the fires, now's the time for him to get up, be involved, be accountable and help fix some of the problems that people are seeing in the floods.

The other issue I want to flag which is causing deep, deep distress within my community is around vaccinations for people living in disability care. Back in February, one of my disability service providers - New Haven Farm Home - were told to get ready for the vaccination programme. They were told there was a plan. They're in Freemans Reach. It's not a place easily accessible to any of the major hubs that have been created, and they understandably had a belief that their residents - their 39 residents and their nearly 100 care staff - would receive the vaccine. Remember, these are people who are in the 1a category. They were considered to be the most important and the most vulnerable, the most important to get vaccinated. Well, that was February. They did everything they needed to do to get consent, which isn't always a simple process because the residents themselves aren't able to give that consent. So it involves a lot of to-ing and fro-ing with families. All of that was done and what happened? Absolutely nothing. They are now beside themselves saying, 'what can we do to have some vaccinations come to us?' Why has this government dropped the ball on vaccinating people with disabilities living in disability care? Families are understandably saying it's not good enough. And for the people who are running these homes they want to do the right thing. They are desperate to do the right thing. One of my other providers, Dare Disability Services in Springwood, has just said forget the Commonwealth, they have been of no use whatsoever, we're going to organise it ourselves and that's what they've done.

Now, this is yet another example of a government who does not take responsibility for anything. No, they outsourced aged care earlier in the pandemic, the looking after elderly people in aged care, they completely walked away from it. Their job was to bring people home from overseas - there's still tens of thousands of people stranded overseas. And now they've got the vaccination rollout - absolutely botching that, not to mention no plan for quarantine. How on earth can anyone say that there's a plan when all it is is a government who says, 'Look, that's not my responsibility'. So that's what we're facing and it's time this government stepped up. This Prime Minister may not hold the hose, but it's time for him to take responsibility.