Minister for Health and Sport and SDP candidate for Sydney, u/dyljam, today visited Westmead Hospital to discuss our nation’s health response to COVID-19, and how the SDP will improve our nation’s healthcare capabilities. Speaking in front of a small physically-distanced group of staff, patients and reporters, dyljam begins speaking:

“Thank you all for coming to my soapbox performance today.”

“We meet here, of course, under altered circumstances. The COVID-19 pandemic has truly changed our way of life. It has disrupted our ways of work, learning and connecting with one-another. It is an unfolding challenge, but it is one in which Australians have risen to. And whilst we all hope that the end of this pandemic is beginning to show itself upon the horizon, we nonetheless need to remind ourselves that it is important our government remains adaptable to the ever-changing environment in which we find ourselves in.”

“This government has strived at every opportunity to mitigate the impact of the pandemic. Comparatively with other nations, we are fairing very well. And that is thanks to Australians heeding the health advice and coming together for the common good. Government assistance programs including JobKeeper have given a lifeline to employees and employers alike. But as we begin what I hope is the last chapter to this pandemic, we must look over the horizon and plan for our post-COVID recovery.”

“Firstly, the Social Democratic Party is the party that protects Australian jobs, and in our post-COVID recovery plan, jobs are central. We support Australian workers, and we support Australian manufacturing. This pandemic is evidence of the critical need to ensure Australia can become largely self-sufficient. This does certainly not mean that we become an inward-looking, protectionist country. Rather, we must become an outward-looking nation, but one with a self-sufficient core. Rather than looking to other countries, we can look with other countries. Rather than be the needy, we can help the needy. We can be the modern, forward-looking, confident economic powerhouse of a nation which we can be.”

“The so-called ‘conservative’ parties are conservative in name only. These parties do not care about job security, they do not care about home ownership. They do not care that the casualisation or ‘precartisation’ of the workplace, which is negatively impacting Australians’ health, and their capability to enter into those large life goals such as house ownership or starting a family. The key to a person’s health, their dignity and their happiness is employment. With a higher rate of employment – and employment security – Australians will be able to invest with confidence. Invest in home ownership, in their families, in their happiness and in the economy.”

“If re-elected, the Social Democratic Party will put these key areas as the nucleus of policy. We will invest in Australians. We will reward hard work. We will continue to restore confidence and stability necessary to get Australia back up and running in a post-COVID world. I am an eternal optimist, and I do believe that every cloud has a silver lining. Only in the midst of darkness can we truly discover the light that awaits us. An SDP government will follow and embrace the light. We will build back better than before. We will ensure that Australia is the prosperous, inclusive and confident nation that we ought to be.”