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

If there were any doubt that the Leader of the Opposition was unfit for high office, we have seen it demonstrated yet again today in this debate for the suspension of standing and sessional orders. The Manager of Opposition Business outlined a range of real issues of import to the Australian community—the issue of the pressure created by the high Australian dollar, the issue of the global economic situation and the issue of jobs. These are the issues that this government is focusing on but the opposition could not care less about. After one question from the Leader of the Opposition, they end question time by moving a suspension of standing and sessional orders. We have seen it all played out in the contribution of the Leader of the Opposition: one standard for himself and another standard for everyone else. Hypocrisy writ large. There is only one member of the Australian parliament who has charges against them—and it is not just shoplifting—and that is a member of the opposition. When did that occur? In May. When did we find out about it? In July. For two months they said absolutely nothing to the Australian people or in their party room. She is still chairing a committee; she has just stepped aside so she stays on the payroll. What hypocrites we see of those opposite. There is no process, there is no convention, there is no tradition, there is no norm that this Leader of the Opposition will not trash. This man is not a conservative; he is a reactionary who has been determined from day one, in what is the longest dummy spit in Australian political history, to trash the parliament, to trash its institutions and to drag everything down. You never see those opposite happier than when an Australian loses their job. They are only concerned about themselves, and we see it day in, day out.

Just look at their hypocrisy. The Leader of the Opposition spoke about parliamentary standards, but last year, on 17 September, he said:

… what we envisaged with the Parliamentary reform … was that the House of Reps would have a pairing system very much like the system that’s operated effectively for years in the Senate, where typically the government hasn’t had a majority …

He went on to say, later that same day:

I also support doing what’s reasonably necessary to ensure that the Parliament can function given the closeness of the vote in the parliament.

What a farce. Today, we saw the Prime Minister's vote not counted because she was doing the job of a Prime Minister—a job that this man will never do because he is incapable of holding high office. We saw the Minister for the Arts and the member for Wentworth prevented from attending the funeral of Margaret Olley. Last week, we stood as one in this House for the condolence motion on her death; yet today, in spite of the fact that it would have no impact on the result—no chance did the opposition have of getting an absolute majority—they chose to make a petty, mean-spirited act, lacking in old-fashioned decency. Then they came in and moved a motion to override the separation that exists between judicial proceedings and the parliamentary process. We had the shadow finance minister's speech last night—an outrageous attack under parliamentary privilege. We had a motion this morning and now we have another one.

This is what the Leader of the Opposition said about the member for Bonner, when there were investigations taking place:

"The matter is really now before the police and perhaps the Criminal and Misconduct Commission in Queensland, and let's let those authorities make their investigations and come to any conclusion," …

"He's a backbench Member of Parliament and I think he's entitled to stay in the Parliament until these bodies have come to their conclusions," he said.

We also have Senator Brandis, of Brandis on Brandis fame. This is what he had to say today, as reported in the Australian online:

… while the Thomson matter "has potential important political ramifications, from my point of view this is not primarily a political matter, it is primarily a legal matter".

That is what the shadow Attorney-General said just today. Of course, he has also said about his own side:

I think people ... are entitled to the presumption of innocence … Particularly since these people are members of parliament …

What a farcical situation we have. Former Prime Minister John Howard had the same thing to say on 7 March 2007. He said, 'A lot of people who are under investigation end up having nothing to answer for.'

The Leader of the Opposition's hypocrisy is perhaps best exemplified by his actions in the establishment of Australians for Honest Politics. Remember the slush fund? When David Oldfield set up One Nation out of his electorate office, along with Pauline Hanson in Warringah, he said, 'A hundred thousand dollars in the fund—we still don't know where it comes from.' When the Leader of the Opposition—the same person who is now moving a motion that the Prime Minister should respond, and there are no allegations against the Prime Minister—was asked, 'Where did the money come from?' he said in the Sydney Morning Herald on 5 September 2003:

"There are some things the public has no particular right to know."

That is what he said.

But, of course, he was part of a government where there was barely a day in its 12 years that one of their frontbench was not under investigation or under threat of having to resign. They lost nine ministers and parliamentary secretaries. It was a revolving door over there because of the accusations and the proven circumstances which led to the resignation of minister after minister, parliamentary secretary after parliamentary secretary, day after day.

We know that they then stonewalled. They had a position whereby, no matter what you did, you were going to get defence. We had Wilson Tuckey providing references to police on his letterhead and Peter Reith giving his credit card to his son, conceding that he should not have done so, and his son giving it to someone else, with the public picking up the bill for all of that. We had the misrepresentation to the public about 'children overboard'. We had scandals involving the former Minister for Foreign Affairs over AWB. We had the member for Wentworth with his rainmaker grants. We had the member for North Sydney launching tourism campaigns for farm stays a couple of days after he opened his own farm stay business—a bit of insider knowledge there. So, day after day, we had those sorts of circumstances occurring, but what we heard from the now Leader of the Opposition was:

"There are some things the public has no particular right to know."

Earlier this year, on the front page of the Australian, one of his mates who helps run the group that has raised over $110,000 for Tony Abbott was talking about Work Choices, but he made no declaration of interest whatsoever.

The Leader of the Opposition gave an interesting speech last week to the AMA. He said: 'You don't have to judge me by my words; you can judge me by my actions.' Well, we do judge the Leader of the Opposition by his actions. His actions are those of someone who is absolutely desperate because they cannot engage in a policy debate about the future of this country because they are too busy trying to dig themselves out of a $70 billion black hole. That is why those opposite have gone away from the policy debate on the economy; they have no interest whatsoever. They are just interested in slurs and digging dirt on members of parliament. It is important that due process be upheld.

See this speech in context