Bowen to skip parliament and remain epicentred in his electorate

Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen will miss parliament for the first time in 16 years as he spends the week in his locked-down electorate in Sydney’s southwest.

Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen. Picture: NCA NewsWire/Joel Carrett

Labor frontbencher Chris Bowen will miss parliament for the first time in 16 years as he spends the week in his locked-down electorate in Sydney’s southwest, declaring he wanted to be in his community, which is the “epicentre” of the Covid outbreak.

Mr Bowen is among dozens of MPs who will be missing from parliament this week, with the House of Representatives likely to have between 70 to 80 members, down from the usual 151.

The Senate is expected to have about 50 people in the chamber, down from a full capacity of 76.

Mr Bowen — whose electorate of McMahon is among the worst impacted from Sydney’s Covid outbreak — said he planned to make speeches to parliament via zoom. He is not able to vote on legislation or motions.

“It is in some way a hard decision not to go and in some ways an easy decision. It is the first sitting I have missed in 16 years, apart from paternity leave,” Mr Bowen told The Australian.

“I’ve got a community at the epicentre here. Everyone uses their own judgment but my judgment was I couldn’t leave them at this point.

“I certainly hope to make a speech about my electorate. And if there are other opportunities, I will certainly be participating that way.

“You have to be at the electorate office to participate in parliament so I will be going in there each day and working from there.”

Most MPs who will be vacant from Parliament House are from Sydney and Melbourne, with Victorians needing to quarantine for two weeks after returning from Canberra.

Greater Sydney-based Labor MPs who will be in parliament include Anthony Albanese, manager of opposition business Tony Burke, opposition whips Chris Hayes and Anne Stanley, and backbenchers Mike Freelander, Susan Templeman and Deborah O’Neill.

The Opposition Leader will face restriction on his movements because he was in Brisbane last week, subjecting him to stay-at-home orders while he is not in Parliament House.

Twenty-one Queensland MPs were flown into Canberra on charter flights after lockdowns were announced on Saturday, but they will also be subject to stay-at-home directions and have to wear masks in parliament.

Any MP or staffer who has been in Brisbane since July 21 has to isolate until they pass a Covid test.

Mr Bowen said he was spending most of his days on the phone to constituents and community leaders, trying to assist in combating disinformation.

“For example, the other day I did a zoom with the local leaders of the subcontinental community: the Indians, the Sri Lankans and Pakistanis … just to see how their community is travelling and what misinformation is out there and what we need to deal with,” he said.

Mr Bowen said his constituents were handling the crisis with ­resilience but noted there was also concern and confusion.

“There is confusion over the rules. I represent four local government areas – at one point the rules were different in three of them,” he said.

“So even I am getting confused. I’m not being critical but there is a lot of confusing information out there.”

He said construction workers in large parts of his seat remained unable to go to work, despite restrictions easing in other parts of the city.

“A lot of people are not working. (It is a) very highly industrialised, manual, transport-focused workforce, so very hard to work from home.

“A lot of construction workers are impacted even with construction going back. Three of my four LGA areas are not able to go to work. That is causing a lot of ­frustration.”

He said that the highly multicultural nature of the electorate added complexity to misinformation being spread.

“There have been problems with the vaccines in Iraq, for example, even though it is a different ­vaccine being used here, that can permeate to this community,” he said.

“You do have to monitor that pretty closely and that is why you keep in touch with the different leaders to see what people are saying, what they are hearing, what disinformation is out there.”