Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This matter of public importance has been raised by the coalition to highlight the vacuum in leadership at the head of the government and the vacuum of ideas and policies at the heart of the government, culminating in the government’s failure to deliver an economic plan for Australia. This government is in the grip of a policy drift—aimless and directionless. It is drifting and—forgive the pun—it is rudderless in more ways than one. It is staggering, stumbling along with no plan for the economy and no plan for the future.

As I said, this matter of public importance was raised by the coalition, but it could so easily have been brought on by Labor itself. Over the past few weeks, we have been the beneficiaries of an insider’s guide to how Labor is faring in government. An array of ministers and former ministers and powerbrokers and former powerbrokers and would-be powerbrokers, Labor insiders all, have given their sober assessments of the Prime Minister and her government. Here is just a small example of the comments and, boy, do I want to read these into Hansard for posterity’s sake! These are the words of Labor’s soothsayers. First, here is Senator Doug Cameron, on what it is like to be a member of the Labor caucus:

It seems to be like having a political lobotomy. You know you are actually your brain is just ripped apart. You can’t think about things. You are not allowed to talk about things and really, you know, we don’t want zombie politicians.

That is a rather uncharitable description of the Labor members of parliament but, hey, who are we to argue with Senator Cameron? Senator Cameron knows and calls it as he sees it. This is a government of hollow people.

Senator John Faulkner, a well-respected figure within Labor circles, opined:

Modern Labor is struggling with the perception we are very long on cunning, and very short on courage. All the political cunning in the world can’t substitute for courage, for leadership.

Hear, hear, Senator Faulkner!

Minister Combet, busily presenting his leadership credentials to all who will listen, said:

… good policy based upon sound values should not be subordinated to research about community opinion …

He is slagging off at their obsession with focus groups. He went on:

… we have a responsibility to lead, not follow.

That was his plaintive cry to the Prime Minister.

Paul Howes, the union boss, also presenting his leadership credentials—he is not even in parliament, but watch this space; it is only a matter of time—gave his considered view:

I think Labor is going through a hard time at the moment. I think federally we are still yet to determine what that new direction is, what that new ideal and aim is for our movement …

He went on to say:

Swings to the Greens and the disillusionment of the ALP base were caused by Labor’s ‘unwillingness to provide real leadership’.

What a damning assessment of the current and former prime ministers.

Then we had former cabinet minister Graham Richardson, clearly a godfather figure to many in the Labor Party. These were his words on their decision to go to an election early:

I told them ‘don’t do this’ because there was no Julia Gillard agenda. There was just a Rudd agenda which she would continue on in an election campaign which I thought was a pretty bad idea. We had to get away from the Rudd agenda. People are tired of that; people didn’t believe it any more.

But then he muses on what would have happened had Labor run its full term. He said:

Where I may have been wrong, however, is we would have been having an election now, and, if there is a weakness in the Gillard government, it’s there still isn’t an agenda. I think, four or five months on there’s still no agenda. There needs to be one; there needs to be one pretty quickly.

So say all Australians. The government has no agenda.

But the award for prescience goes to former Labor leader Mark Latham, the man the current Prime Minister fervently believed would be the best person to lead this nation as Prime Minister. He said on 24 June, the day after former Prime Minister Rudd was toppled by the current Prime Minister, that the ALP:

… is a poll-driven party and there will be nothing—

no new policies, he means—

in the coming months … The modern Labor Party is so focused on polling, so focused on marketing … it has given up on getting these reforms through.

And referring to the current Prime Minister, he warned her to be careful and to watch her back because, he said, when the polls fall ‘she will be the next one for the knife’.

It is four months on and his words are hauntingly prescient. Political history shows that new leaders and new governments invariably receive a honeymoon period, basking in positive media and positive opinion polls. The Australian people give them a go. Not this government—the honeymoon period for this Prime Minister, this government, is well and truly over. Its brevity must be a record. Newspoll shows the polling for Labor and the Prime Minister to be about the same, in some instances worse, than the polls that led to the downfall of Prime Minister Rudd. So the sharks are circling and the Labor Party frontbench is lining up to knife the Prime Minister in the back.

But let us hear the words of the Prime Minister herself, which reveal the totality of her thoughts on key economic issues such as population and managing the budget. I ask members in the House, members of the press gallery and members of the viewing public to ponder these gems from the lips of the current Prime Minister. On population planning, she said:

… moving forward means moving forward with plans to build a sustainable Australia …

On the budget—these are her words—she said:

Moving forward means moving forward with budget surpluses …

Seriously, this is the leader of our nation, with all the rhetorical flourish of a dead cat. No wonder the sharks are circling. It is clear the Prime Minister lives in a parallel universe where brain-numbing repetition substitutes for plain speaking. It is little wonder Senator Cameron feels he has been subjected to a political lobotomy. It is no wonder he says Labor is full of zombies. The cliches, the slogans and the repetition from the leader are clearly inhibiting thought and debate within Labor. I am sure many viewers would feel that their minds are being ‘ripped apart’, to quote Senator Cameron, when they listen to the non-answers from the Prime Minister to questions in question time.

In the context of this MPI and the failure of the government to deliver a plan for managing Australia’s economy, let us have a look at the Prime Minister’s track record. It is not a track record of achievement; it is a track record of failure—no redemption in sight; even if there is a policy idea, it is going nowhere. The Prime Minister’s three-word slogan of a ‘regional processing centre’—her answer to the growing number of boat people—has been ridiculed by her own side and rebuffed by the parliament of East Timor, the very nation that she insists must host her thought bubble. The Murray-Darling Basin Plan has been delayed. The national curriculum has been rejected by New South Wales and will be delayed. The cash-for-clunkers policy has been ridiculed and delayed. The citizens assembly, thankfully, has disappeared. And 2½years ago the Treasurer announced a root-and-branch tax reform policy review. Nearly 12 months ago, the government received the report from Dr Henry, and apart from the mining tax in its original form not one other reform has been put in place. The Henry report has been virtually ignored by this government—so much for its credentials on tax reform.

We must remember that this was the Prime Minister who said: ‘The government has lost its way. We must dump the mining tax.’ She dumped the mining tax, fixed it with three out of the 3,000 miners and it is now unravelling. This is the Prime Minister who said that we had to walk away from an emissions trading scheme and convinced Prime Minister Rudd of that fateful decision. She promised before the election that there would be no carbon tax. Now a carbon tax is on the table. This is the Prime Minister who said—her own words—that she would ‘stop the boats’. She introduced her East Timor regional processing centre—a three-word slogan. It will not happen. Everyone in the region knows it. She has wasted valuable time on her overseas trips flogging the dead horse of her regional processing centre.

It is quite clear to whom Senator Faulkner was referring when he said:

All the political cunning in the world can’t substitute for courage, for leadership.

He was referring to the current Prime Minister. He was referring to this government, a government that in four short months has lost any credibility, any respectability and any legitimacy for the Labor Party. It is a disgrace.

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