Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I was taken during question time by the blue, which referred to the text of the MPI. I was taken in particular by its reference to the term ‘dismal performance’. I thought this might provoke a useful discussion and debate in the House today about dismal performances because, as I gazed upon the benches opposite, not only did we see something dismal but we saw something terminally divided as well. The performance of those opposite today, throughout this year and during the Leader of the Opposition’s period in office has been dismal with a capital D. We are having a debate in the parliament now about the industrial relations system of Australia. What is dismal is that the alternative government have no single position on industrial relations. That is dismal with a capital D.

What is dismal with a capital D is that, in the other debate we have been having this week on asylum seekers, we are told that their party room meeting on Tuesday went ‘berserk’ on the question of asylum seekers. On industrial relations, Alby told us that it was ‘bonkers’ to support the position that was embraced by the Leader of the Opposition. They are bonkers one day, berserk the next! On something as sensitive and as important as asylum seekers, you would think that a so-called credible political party like the Liberal Party would actually come up with a uniform, united position—but no. Of course, during the week it has been not just industrial relations or asylum seekers but also climate change and water. They are a broad church, the Leader of the Opposition tell us—that is, they were a broad church until he sacked a shadow parliamentary secretary for having a different view of what the broad church might mean!

The opposition’s performance has been dismal in terms of the absolute disarray that we find in the Leader of the Opposition’s language on the temporary deficit question. I draw honourable members’ attention to this question: why has that d-word disappeared from their language all week? We have underway at the moment the old Malcolm Turnbull crab walk. Earlier this week we had the Leader of the Opposition in full flight, decrying anything which approached a temporary deficit as an absolute abandonment of economic management. Then we go to the critical interview that he had on ABC radio a couple of mornings ago, where on three to four separate occasions he was asked directly: would the opposition rule out a temporary deficit under any circumstances? And on three to four occasions what we saw was the Malcolm Turnbull crab walk. It was not completed until we had an interview—I think it was on Adelaide radio yesterday—where finally the crab walk reached its destination: in fact, a temporary deficit could be embraced if that was the last resort. He went from the position that a temporary deficit was a complete abandonment of economic management principles, through the crab walk of saying, ‘Can’t answer that question; it’s all economic theory,’ to yesterday’s position—which I thought was a beaut—that a temporary deficit could be embraced as a last resort.

Is it any wonder those opposite feel as if they are in disarray? That is what has been reflected in their shifting position on something so crucial to the current debate. But it goes beyond that. The whole debate on the economy comes about as a consequence of the global financial crisis—a global financial crisis which on one day is described as overhyped and on the next is described as the worst since the Depression. Is it any wonder no-one can find a consistent thread up the middle of what the opposition have been talking about in this chamber all year?

Then we go to the rest of the disarray within the Liberal Party on things as basic as interest rates. The Leader of the Opposition said that a rise in interest rates—the seventh rise, in fact, out of their 10 interest rate rises in a row—was being overdramatised. Then he turned himself into Captain Courageous, attacking the banks—interesting, given where the Leader of the Opposition comes from—for their posture on interest rates. Then we have the extraordinary posture he adopted in recent days which is, as reflected in his opinion piece in the Australian that we mentioned in an earlier debate today: ‘Go for the full lot, the whole bottle. Don’t worry about it. Don’t hold back. Profits are king.’ Is it any wonder that people cannot thread together the consistency of the Leader of the Opposition? And it goes on and on.

The Leader of the Opposition claims to be the author of fiscal rectitude on the one hand and then, on the other, launches into an unbridled and unprecedented political attack on the Secretary to the Treasury, authorising his leading henchperson up the back to engage in a simultaneous attack on the Governor of the Reserve Bank, accusing the Governor of the Reserve Bank, in orchestrated tactics from the office of the Leader of the Opposition, of engaging in, in effect, partisan behaviour in support of the Australian Labor Party. And it goes on and on and on. The fuel excise—one day he is against it, the next day he is for it and the third day he is against it again, and I still do not see what the final and formal position is.

If you want the epitome of disarray, I could say: look at each element of these policies, whether it goes to the global financial crisis, interest rates, the temporary deficit, asylum seekers or the rest. But it all reaches its crescendo in the person of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. Julie has had a very good week—so good a week, in fact, that according to the West Australian we have the Leader of the Opposition now telling his colleagues that he has to do two jobs: his and the shadow Treasurer’s. I have not seen the Leader of the Opposition stand up to say that that report in the West Australian newspaper was wrong.

See this speech in context