Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I am very pleased to once again be taking a suspension of standing orders by the Leader of the Opposition. I am pleased to be able to do it, but I am a bit disappointed about when I am doing it, because in the sweep that has gone around in the gallery from members of the opposition and members of the government, staff and, indeed, just members of the public, I tipped 2:58. It is beyond me how the Leader of the Opposition has allowed Play School to go ahead without its preamble every day. That was a great tweet yesterday about what time it was from someone who said, 'I think it will be 2:50 and I also think it will be the round window.' They will pick on Play School. I also think it will be the round window. I understand that maybe it was the round window yesterday when there was a bear in there.

But we know what we have opposite is a relentless, negative, political animal who is just engaged in negativity all the way every day, every week, every month and every year. We should not suspend standing orders because we should have the opportunity to ask questions in this House. The questions should be asked, of course, by members of the government and members of the opposition and crossbenchers. Today, members of the government asked questions about Afghanistan, the National Broadband Network, the economy, climate change, mental health and families. They asked questions about the achievements of this government and about the future agenda of this government.

What did those opposite do? They asked a series of questions, all of them out of order under standing order 100(c), that engaged in abuse and engaged in political stunts. We know that the Leader of the Opposition is all stunts and no ideas. He is all opposition and no leader. Remember that on Monday at 10 am he was coming in here to move his bill for the best stunt that he has come up with in terms of its going down in flames everywhere. The fact is that we are now at Thursday, we are nearing the end of the session of this financial year and it still has not been moved. He has not even attempted to move it. All that puff and all those page 1 stories amounted to absolutely nothing, because he could not get past the first hurdle that was that really difficult question he was asked, which was: how will you respond to the result of the plebiscite? It was a real toughie. They workshopped it through, but he just could not bring himself to say yes to anything, because this is someone who is all division and no vision—he is simply engaged in stunts.

The vuvuzela will make an appearance—do not worry about that. The fact is that he has had his staff members writing to members of industry saying things like this:

I hope you are well. I was wondering if any of your members would be happy to host Mr Abbott for a site visit [with media]?

He has been out there writing not that they have any policy concerns with the government—it is more than one; there is a series of them from the office of the Leader of the Opposition—but:

In addition, as we discussed, Mr Abbott is keen to continue to visit industry across Australia as part of his program. We are always keen to add to our list of potential visit locations. Thank you for the opportunity to meet today.

What we have here is members of industry who are meeting with the opposition—and who are getting follow-up emails about site visits with the media—and who regard his tactics with such contempt that they are giving those emails to the government to put out there. That is how pathetic it is. He is just trawling Australia looking for cheap stunts. He is not looking for policy input and he is not looking for policy ideas—he is not interested in any of the big issues.

We have had the visit to Canberra of the failed Liberal Party candidate and we have had the head of the Warringah Club, his chief fundraiser. They are on page 1 of the Australian this week calling for a return to Work Choices, calling for the rights of workers to be ripped out. We know that they are engaged in this massive battle with Peter Reith, who wants to come back to set them straight because he thinks they have gone a bit soft and they should actually tell people that they want to do Work Choices rather than do it after the election.

An article by Tom Arup published in 2010 entitled '"Mad monk" meets Monckton' spoke about the famous meeting between Lord Monckton and those opposite. We know, of course, that Lord Monckton overnight has been exposed with his great plan to expose the world government conspiracy that is climate change and that Professor Garnaut, who is one of Australia's most respected former public servants—

A government member: What did they call him? A Labor Party hack.

The member for Mackellar calls Professor Garnaut a Labor Party hack. That is better than the Leader of the Nationals, who thinks that anyone who believes in action on climate change is a communist, as he said when I was responding to my question in parliament earlier today.

We know that you can always learn a lot about someone by the company they keep. That was something that I was taught as I was growing up. Tony Abbott, the Leader of the Opposition, will be there next week with Lord Monckton, associating himself yet again with these extreme views that someone is an econazi because they believe in climate change, because they believe that climate change is human induced—a complete joke. Meanwhile, we are getting on with our agenda—the agenda of the economy, the agenda that has created 700,000 jobs, the agenda that is bringing the budget back to surplus by 2012-13 and the agenda that today of all days has made such an important advance for the National Broadband Network. We are putting in place critical reform. We have brought in the legislation for the structural separation of Telstra, we have got it through the parliament and we have engaged in negotiations with Telstra and Optus in the interests of the nation. But those opposite cannot even bring themselves to support that.

In education we are engaged with the national curriculum, almost doubling investment. We are engaged in the trade training centres and the skills increases that are out there. We are engaged in national health reform with the GP superclinics and the mental health package that we made space for in the budget. In the work that we have done on infrastructure, we have doubled the roads budget. We have increased the annual rail budget by more than 10 times. We have committed more money to urban public rail than all the governments combined in the previous 107 years since Federation. That is what we have achieved since 2007.

But those opposite are captured by their relentless negativity. The Leader of the Opposition is to political discourse what the vuvuzela was to World Cup soccer. When you first hear him, he does get your attention. But once you realise there is only one note, once you realise he is a one-trick pony, it just becomes annoying, because all you hear is no, no, no, no. That is the only thing he has, because he has absolutely nothing positive to say about Australia's future.

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