Andrew Laming (Bowman, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

That is fine, Mr Deputy Speaker. I return to another element of the bill. Since 1952, this change to legislation has only been made a number of times. The last time it was done was in 2006. I would put to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that the justification for bringing this legislation to this chamber cannot be supported, given the performance of these ministers. I am absolutely insistent that we have a situation, politically and historically, where, for the first time in Australia’s history, we have a government that has insisted on wasting enormous amounts of taxpayer resources, with extremely limited accountability, and then they have the effrontery at the end of their first political term, only months before an election, to demand a salary increase. If I were this government, I would be scurrying away from this place, trying to do everything I could to obfuscate the lack of achievement over these last 2½ years because it is a shameful record. I think that the records of this party, the records of this government, are extremely tenuous and to make the association—

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