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

The motion before the chair is yet again for a suspension of standing orders—the 38th time in the 43rd parliament that we have had question time disrupted in order to hear those opposite essentially have a dummy spit about the fact that they are still on that side of the House. Ever since August 2010 we have had the longest dummy spit in Australian political history.

We should not suspend standing orders to accommodate such a dummy spit. We have important business before the House. In total, more than 10 question times have now been lost as a result of these suspension motions. Time after time, those opposite have moved these suspension motions without building any case whatsoever. In this particular case, the PHI legislation is actually before the parliament. So what they are saying is, 'Suspend standing orders and stop the debate on private health insurance so we can have a debate on private health insurance.' How absurd. For that reason alone we should reject this motion to suspend standing orders.

The Leader of the Opposition spoke about class war. This is a guy who has declared class war on working families on behalf of Clive Palmer and Gina Rinehart. This is an opposition which comes in here day after day to defend the entrenchment of privilege rather than promote the enhancement of opportunity. Day after day, issue after issue, you can see it. It comes from their guts—and I will come back to that term later. In their guts, they defend the entrenchment of privilege—because it is all about who they are, where they have come from and where they want to stay. They have a born-to-rule attitude, which is why we see these dummy spits time after time—always defending the top end of town.

I am not surprised they want to suspend standing orders rather than have question time. No matter what issue you look at, they are out of touch. Look at the issue of the banks. The shadow Treasurer had an absolute shocker last week and I would have thought it had to get better this week. But today he said, 'If the banks are under funding pressures, if you look at their funding profiles and if you speak to people in markets, you can get a feel for what is happening.' That is what he is saying today. He is out there defending the banks for putting up their interest rates last Friday. Over the weekend he was complaining, but today we get the opposite.

That is the position that they have had. The shadow Treasurer, the shadow finance minister and the Leader of the Opposition have been all over the shop on all of these issues. And yet the Leader of the Opposition has the hide to come in here and speak about honesty and trust. Indeed the suspension motion they have moved here today would go to that. This is a guy who said, in a speech to the Sydney Institute:

One man's lie is another's judgment call.

That was his position on 5 June 2007. In September 2003, he told the Herald:

… there are some things the public has no particular right to know.

Of course we know that in May 2010 he said this:

… sometimes in the heat of discussion you go a little bit further than you would if it was an absolutely calm, considered, prepared, scripted remark. Which is one of the reasons why the statements that need to be taken absolutely as gospel truth are those carefully prepared, scripted remarks.

That is what he had to say, in his own words—do not believe him unless it is written down, unless it is scripted.

There are some big debates before the nation—there is one about a return to surplus, and one about fairness and opportunity. Those opposite, who speak about truth, said during this debate that 3.5 million Australians earning under $35,000 a year would be impacted by the legislation before the House. They know that is not true.

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