Sussan Ley (Farrer, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Housing) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, congratulations on your appointment. As the opposition we are keen to keep the government on the straight and narrow path of honest administration, subjecting everyone’s actions to scrutiny and, where necessary, political argument. The job of an opposition is to hold the government to account, scrutinise its decisions and apply our technical knowledge and experience to the policies it produces and the business of the day. Mainly, our analysis and our valid criticism of the government is concentrated in this place, the House of Representatives, where we compel the government to explain and defend itself. A government is, of course, only as good as its opposition. The Australian people demand a strong, hardworking opposition. They expect and deserve no less.

It is the Australian people who are being short-changed by this decision. How can we hold the government to account if they do not turn up on Fridays of sitting weeks? There is a popular saying that the world is run by those who turn up. Ministers will not be turning up on Fridays. The Prime Minister will not be turning up. We are happy to sit on Fridays. We are happy to turn up. But our job, as I say, is to hold the government to account, and how can we do that if the executive of government are not here to answer our legitimate questions? What will be happening on Friday? Private members’ business. It will be meaningless if there is no-one there to listen. In my experience of private members’ business, good subjects are raised. We see the work of the parliament at its best; we see a spirit of cooperation and bipartisanship. No-one will be listening. Ministers will have travelled home the day before in comfort, making full use of priority flights, limousine service and all the trappings of executive office. They will be relaxing by the pool, enjoying a drink, catching up with family and recovering after their difficult four-day week.

The ministers in Kevin Rudd’s cabinet are on light duties; their backbench colleagues are doing the heavy lifting. Under this system there are two classes of government members, the executive and the backbench, and there is a world of difference between them. The fact that Kevin Rudd chose to perpetuate the myth with the Australian public that when we are not here we are not at work is a disgrace. We take the work in our electorates very seriously. My electorate has expanded to 200,000 square kilometres and it stretches from Albury to Broken Hill to Tibooburra, which is the New South Wales-Queensland-South Australian border. I am not complaining—I love every inch of it—but, as others who represent large rural electorates have explained, the difficulties of managing that and managing the work of the parliament mean that we are wasting our time, we are wasting our constituents’ time and we are wasting time, money and resources in this place. I am here to represent my constituents. I have to tell you that they are asking: why are we here at midnight on the first day of parliament talking about this stuff when we should have sorted it out in a spirit of cooperation? It is not a good beginning. I urge members of the government to reconsider this rather silly proposal.

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