Jamie Briggs (Mayo, Liberal Party, Chairman of the Scrutiny of Government Waste Committee) Share this | Hansard source

I rise more out of pity than I do out of a genuine need to debate this motion. Realistically, this motion is a desperate bid from the Labor Party to try to create a political diversion in question time. With the mover of the motion not being able to fill five minutes on his own motion, we see just how desperate a bid this is to create a political opportunity for the Minister for Health and Ageing and her little sidekick, the Minister for Mental Health and Ageing. I think this is a desperate attempt from a desperate government that has big issues on its plate that it cannot deal with. Telling fibs to the Australian electorate prior to an election and then changing its mind straight after the election has probably been its biggest issue.

So it is with a bit of pity that we waste the parliament's time with this motion when there are so many other important things we could be talking about, particularly from a minister and a government mired in hypocrisy when it comes to this issue. The Minister for Health and Ageing gets in here every day—and I am sure we will see the theatrics again today—and tries to create a big storm about donations, but she was the beneficiary of corporate hospitality from Philip Morris. I am sure that everyone knows that the Minister for Health and Ageing is a huge Lleyton Hewitt fan and she was so desperate to see Lleyton play that she went ahead and accepted corporate hospitality from Philip Morris. I think it just shows the hypocrisy. There is nothing wrong with accepting corporate hospitality—I am sure that all members on both sides do—but there is something very wrong with the hypocrisy of a minister who comes into this place day after day and tries to suggest that, in effect, taking donations from organisations makes you corrupt, accessible to corruption or that your policies are being influenced by those donations.

If that is the case then let us just go through the record on donations and the use of Commonwealth money by the Labor Party. We know that each member of the Labor Party is a wholly owned subsidiary of the trade union movement in this country. The trade unions pay a hell of a lot of money to have that right over each of those members. We know in the last three years, leading to the 2010 election, that the Labor Party received some $20 million from its trade union masters—just at the federal level alone. Coincidentally, in the last two budgets the Labor government has handed the trade unions $20 million. What a coincidence! In the last two budgets the taxpayer—including everyone sitting in the gallery watching this debate—handed $10 million to the Trade Union Education Foundation. Another effort this year can be found on page 148 in the budget papers, for the information of the member for La Trobe, where the unions were handed another $10 million for another fund, the Building Australia's Future Workforce fund:

The Fund will provide … $10.0 million … to unions to enable them to provide tailored information and education resources to their membership.

And, of course, to complete the money-go-round of Labor Party and trade union donations there was $20 million from the unions to the Labor Party and $20 million back to the unions from the Australian taxpayer through the Labor government. Absolute, utter hypocrites! These people get in here and waste the parliament's time on matters relating to donations. They are complete and utter hypocrites. They spend their time getting their union masters to get them elected and then they give them back their money in government. They come into this place and waste the time of this parliament when we should be debating complete fibs about carbon taxes. We should be debating the integrity of a government that says one thing and then does another directly after an election. In the last parliament the now Leader of the Opposition outlined in this place on many occasions the complete rort that was Centenary House. Some members in this place remember the rort that was Centenary House. For those who do not remember, that was the deal the Labor Party gave themselves in a previous government, where they organised to have $36 million fleeced from the Australian taxpayer to pay for over-the-market rents from the ANAO at Centenary House in Barton.

This motion should be treated with contempt, because that is what the Australian Labor Party are showing by putting it to the parliament. This is a complete and utter joke. We know the record of the Minister for Health and Ageing in taking corporate hospitality from tobacco companies. We know this is a desperate attempt by the Labor Party to divert attention from the ongoing crisis, which is their base walking away from them because they fibbed to the Australian electorate before the last election. (Time expired)

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