Greg Hunt (Flinders, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Climate Change, Environment and Urban Water) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for O’Connor for producing an audience. This debate and these motions are about two things. Firstly, they are about the attempt to provide the impression of activity, which is the hallmark of the government’s early months. Let me be absolutely clear that the early months, the first 100 days, of this government have not been about activity but about the impression of activity. Let me run through the details. First, let us talk about the promises they have breached so far, all designed to give the impression of activity.

On 18 November, Mr Rudd made a little promise to the people of Australia. He said that this House would be recalled before Christmas. Strangely, it never happened. Nobody asked him to make the promise. Nobody compelled him. It was a self-inflicted wound. It was a promise which he did not intend to keep. He made it to the Australian people in the last week before an election. It was a gross violation of trust, but it was designed to give the impression of activity. And guess what? This House did not start until today. And why is that?

When there was nothing preventing the House being called last week or the week before that, what we saw was a House that started later than in 2007, later than in 2006, later than in 2005, later than in 2004, later than in 2003, and the list goes on. So the promise made to the Australian people was: ‘I will get the parliament to work before Christmas,’ but it never happened. Why is it, I ask the members of the government, that their leader promises this to the Australian people and does not deliver? And why did he not even call parliament earlier than we have been brought back?

The second of the promises was on 29 November. What we saw on 29 November was again a unilateral promise to the Australian people that there would be no holidays but for Christmas Day and Boxing Day. I note something very simple: the transcript which makes that statement, as of this evening, has been taken off the Prime Minister’s own website. I checked it before coming into this House. The promise has been taken off the Prime Minister’s own website. I would be delighted if perhaps the Prime Minister’s parliamentary secretary could indicate why this transcript has been taken off the website and whether this practice of expunging history will be a practice taken forward from this day forward. Where is the transcript of 29 November with the Prime Minister’s promise—unasked for by anyone else—that ministers would work on all days other than Christmas and Boxing Day? Because we know that between 21 December and 14 January there is not a single transcript from the Prime Minister on his website. Nobody asked him to make this promise—but, again, it was the impression of activity which he sought to cultivate, whilst not living up to it. Who is happy with the fact that their Prime Minister makes a promise, when not sought by anyone else, and does not live up to it? That is the second example of the impression of activity.

The third is that on 19 September his Minister for Foreign Affairs and his Minister for the Environment, Heritage and the Arts made the promise on his behalf to the Australian people that they would send the Oceanic Viking out to sea within days. Nothing happened. When Christmas came, the ship was still in port in Fremantle. When New Year came, the ship was still in port in Fremantle. When the first week of January came, the ship was still in port in Fremantle. And when the second week of January came, the ship was still in port in Fremantle. All this adds up to a pattern of deception and a process of providing an impression of activity.

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