Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Parliamentary Secretary for Disabilities and Children's Services) Share this | Hansard source

It is ironic that the opposition have raised this issue on 24 June. It is ironic because, on the same day in 1812, the role model of the Leader of the Opposition took the French army into Russia—and we all know what happened there. What we see yet again is the opposition going a bridge too far—the inability of the opposition to recognise that it is on the wrong track altogether.

I certainly oppose the proposition in this MPI for a number of reasons. I oppose it because, on the one hand, an immediate and full judicial inquiry into the OzCar affair is a complete waste of time and a distraction from the priorities of this nation and, on the other hand, it is a distraction from the examination of the conduct of the opposition and in particular the Leader of the Opposition. This is a complete waste of time. In preparing for this discussion, I had a look at some of the royal commissions that the previous government instigated. There was the HIH Royal Commission. I guess for the opposition leader I had better not go there. That cost $13 million. There was the Royal Commission into the Building and Construction Industry. What a waste of time that was—$70 million. There was the witch hunt over Centenary House—$4 million. There was the oil for food scandal. We all know what that reflected—$47 million to discover, I have to say, the failures of the now opposition, the then government. Their defence was in essence: ‘We did not know what was going on. We did not know about the $300 million in bribes.’ At least that justified a proper inquiry. Of course, most recently we have seen the conclusion of the equine influenza commission of inquiry. These are issues which warranted the interest of a royal commission.

We have the now opposition lining up this so-called OzCar affair against all those issues. We have heard no detail from the opposition about what sort of judicial inquiry they want. Do they want an ad hoc inquiry? Their words say: ‘An immediate and full judicial inquiry’. Clearly this implies an inquiry of the highest status—a royal commission, no less. The opposition, so desperate to divert attention from their own conduct, are in fact proposing a judicial inquiry which would see the need to find a judicial officer to hear the matter, counsel assisting no doubt and all the witnesses that will be required needing their costs to be paid as well as those of all the parties involved. And who would be the parties involved in a judicial inquiry? Would it be the Liberal Party of Australia and what they know about emails and the peddling of false and untrue documents to the press gallery?

We will also need to look at how long this expensive waste of time would take. We have to ask ourselves this question: why do the opposition wish to delay getting to the heart of the matter? There is an alternative, which this government has acted on from day 1. It said, ‘Let’s go to the Auditor-General,’ a perfectly sensible alternative to get to the heart of certain matters involved in this tawdry opposition scandal. If the opposition are saying that a full and immediate inquiry is necessary, what are they suggesting are the shortcomings of the Auditor-General? What is it they think will not be found out through that process which would warrant a completely wasteful white elephant witch-hunt? Indeed, the Australian Federal Police are involved in investigating these matters, many of which, once you clear the smoke, seem to emanate from the opposition and their conduct. What is it that the opposition is saying about the Australian Federal Police and their shortcomings or the evidence that the opposition thinks that they will not find which would warrant an immediate inquiry?

The reason why I have spent some time examining what they mean by a judicial inquiry is that it is clearly a waste of time. Under the Howard government, their inquiries cost tens of millions of dollars. Are they suggesting that this government divert tens of millions of dollars from the very necessary challenge of dealing with the global financial crisis just to retrospectively justify their witch hunt, which has proven to be a total waste of time? Another sinister motive emerges from the opposition’s MPI. Why delay the Auditor-General and the Australian Federal Police inquiries? Anyone with first year legal training would understand that a full and immediate judicial inquiry—if acted upon—would in fact delay the work of the Auditor-General and the Australian Federal Police.

We have today many important issues to deal with. I can tell you what the electorate is saying. The electorate thinks on one hand that the opposition leader seems to be very ruthless, very arrogant and a bit like his namesake from 1812, the Emperor Napoleon—determined to win office at all costs. Today there are many serious issues to deal with. Abolishing the detention debt regime is a serious issue worthy of the consideration of this parliament. Another worthy issue of consideration is not this MPI but in fact the delay in the Senate of the Carbon Pollution Reduction Scheme. Overnight, we have had the World Bank report on and provide global forecasts about what is happening in the global economy. That is an issue worth discussing today. But did we hear one question from the opposition on that? Absolutely not.

Australians expect their members of parliament of all political stripes to be debating issues such as abolishing the detention debt regime, the delay to the CPRS and attempts to deal with climate change. They would reasonably expect us to look at what the World Bank is forecasting for economic activity. Indeed, concerned Australians would expect us to be dealing with and hearing reports about swine flu. But did we get one question from the opposition on the swine flu pandemic? Not one.

Indeed, we waited—with perhaps some misguided optimism—to see whether the Leader of the Opposition and the opposition tactics committee say, ‘My goodness: over the weekend, our case has turned to ashes’—if in fact they did not realise that beforehand. I saw some glimmers yesterday. I saw the member for Warringah start to concede that perhaps this matter had not gone in the direction that the opposition assassins had hoped it would. Indeed, I heard the member for Gippsland say yesterday morning on Sky TV that perhaps the matter had not been handled as well as it should have been. I agree. Were these smoke signals? Were these tea leaves that I could read? Were the opposition going to realise that Australians are unimpressed by a debate which has no substance and which was clearly triggered by a false and fraudulent email? Would the Leader of the Opposition have the capacity to say, ‘I got this one wrong; maybe we were on the wrong track’? Did they have that capacity? No. Instead of just using up five hours of question time and debate on Monday, they persisted yesterday and they persist today.

I caution the opposition, in following the opposition leader’s tactics, about something that they teach pilots to watch out for: the captain pilot syndrome. This is something that occurs when the captain of the aeroplane is a man or woman of such authority that even when the plane is heading into hazardous conditions—even when the plane could be in danger of stalling or falling out of the air—the rest of the crew do nothing. All too often, the black boxes from the recordings of aeroplane disasters show that the first officer, the co-pilot—because they are trained to have such respect for hierarchy—did not give a timely warning or try to arrest the inevitable and impending plane disaster. What we see is that the opposition have such a captain of their aeroplane. Even when we know that he is wrong, even when the opposition mutely know that he is wrong, even when the press gallery know that he is wrong and, most importantly, even when all of the people not in this place watching the games—the waste of question time and the opposition not dealing with the issues—know he is wrong, do any of them speak up and say, ‘Stop this unfolding disaster’? Not at all.

The priorities of this country should be jobs, jobs and jobs. That is what we are talking about. But we hear nothing from them on this. Instead, we hear, ‘Let’s have a judicial inquiry.’ The call for a full and immediate judicial inquiry in these circumstances is the last cry of a drowning man. It tries to take us away from examining the conduct of the Leader of the Opposition. The only inquiry that we need answered is: what dealings has the opposition leader had to do with the peddling of this false document? Why didn’t the opposition conduct due diligence? Is it that they knew it was false but still proceeded or is it that they were so careless and reckless with that truth and so blinded by the desire to become the government that they threw truth overboard, as they did with the children overboard scandal?

What we have seen in the proposition for this inquiry is a tale of sound and fury but no visible substance. This inquiry has not been spelled out or sketched out. It will be a massive and expensive waste of time and a delay on the proceedings. It is not the real issue of Australia. Australians want the opposition to come back to being an opposition, not just a pack of people peddling forgeries and fraudulent documents and wasting the time of this parliament and the nation. The opposition leader has demonstrated that he is not fit for the job which he currently holds and he is certainly never going to be fit to be the Prime Minister of this country.

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