Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

What we have seen in this place today has been a great display of arrogance by a government that has been in office for too long. We have seen arrogance writ large on the part of a minister at the dispatch box. We have seen arrogance writ large by those ministers interjecting in this debate. The bad news for the government is this: working families across this country spot arrogance at a hundred paces; they spot it at a thousand paces. Those listening to the debate today, those who have been watching the debate today in question time, will have seen arrogance writ large. In the last 24 hours we have seen a government which has said to itself: ‘We have as a leader the greatest Prime Minister Australia has ever seen.’ We have had a government which has claimed for itself that it has the greatest Treasurer Australia has ever seen. We have had a government which has said that it has produced the greatest environmental achievements that Australia has ever seen. Today we had ministers being described as the ‘greatest ministers ever to serve in any government in this place’. The Australian people, working families, spot arrogance, and they spot arrogance on the part of a government which now finds itself in decline.

The purpose of question time today was very straightforward—that is, to establish some basic truths, some basic facts. We asked the Treasurer a series of very basic, factual questions. The Treasurer refused to answer each of those questions that he was asked, bar the first. He was asked specifically about the nature of his answer to questions asked of him by Sky News yesterday. He refused. He was asked specifically questions concerning his comments to Mr Brissenden of The 7.30 Report. He refused. He was asked specifically questions about the activities of his press secretary in seeking to place that interview off the record, and he refused. These were just some of the questions which the Treasurer refused to answer.

What we have instead from the Treasurer is bluff, bluster and volume. The great Costello principle is that the more you shout from the dispatch box, the greater the degree of logic must be attendant on the proposition which has just been shouted. But when people dissect what the Treasurer has said, underneath it all they know that he had no answer to deliver to these questions. And the reason we asked them, apart from establishing the truth of them, is this: when we come to the actual proposition of the sustainability of this government, the relationship between Prime Minister and Treasurer is a fundamental one.

More fundamentally, what has been at stake here is: how fair dinkum is the Treasurer? We have seen the Treasurer engaged in duck, weave, obfuscation, refusing to answer, a selective quotation here, ignoring the question there. But do you know something? Working families have spotted this, they have spotted it over a long period of time, and they are reaching the conclusion that not only is this Treasurer not fair dinkum—and these questions today have all been about whether this Treasurer is fair dinkum and can be trusted—but also that the government of which he is a part can no longer be trusted either.

After 11 long years in office, this government has lost touch with working families. After 11 long years in office, this government has gone stale and has run out of ideas for the country’s future. And worse, this government has ceased governing. This is a government now preoccupied with fighting among itself. This is a government distracted by its internal feuds. It is a government whose energies are now sapped internally by its own divisions. It is a government which has increasingly become directionless, leaderless and without a vision for the future, because it is a government now absorbed with itself and no longer absorbed with the nation. It is a government whose ministers believe that what is more important is their own futures, not the future of the country. And that is what families across our nation have seen, identified and are reaching conclusions on.

This Howard government is no longer just a government in decline; it is a government in decay. If you cannot any longer govern yourself as a party, how can you continue to lay claim to being able to govern the country? These are the basic propositions which those observing the politics of this nation are now asking themselves.

Of course, this record of decline, this record of decay, has not just happened overnight. This has been happening for some time, and it has been happening on key questions about which families across this nation have been engaged for a very long time. This government has breached the people’s trust on Iraq. It is a government which has breached the people’s trust when it comes to the $300 million worth of bribes it happily consigned over to the Iraqi dictator, having sent our brave men and women in uniform to Iraq to fight in that war. It is a government which has breached—

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