Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Standing orders must be suspended because it is the Prime Minister who is in the dock here, not the member for Dobell. There are many members of parliament over the years whose behaviour has been questionable, but it is how their party leaders have dealt with that behaviour that really matters and has determined the standing or otherwise of this parliament.

Standing orders must be suspended so this Prime Minister's integrity can be debated. That is the fundamental issue that has been before the parliament this week. For months the Prime Minister has been saying to us every time we have asked questions about the member for Dobell, 'Just wait for the Fair Work Australia report,' and we waited, and we waited, and we waited, and we waited. For almost four years we waited for that report. I have to say it was worth waiting for. There were damning findings in that report, damning findings that $100,000 of union members' cash had been withdrawn improperly and unaccountably, that hundreds of thousands of dollars of union members' money had been used improperly to secure election and that $6,000 of union members' cash had been used on escort services. These are facts, these are findings of facts, not mere allegations. And where is the Prime Minister? She is skulking in the whip's office rather than addressing this issue of integrity which is dogging her government.

Standing orders must be suspended because for months the Prime Minister said she had full confidence in the member for Dobell. She said she wanted him to be in the parliament for many, many years. Now, along with the carbon tax that she will not actually name, this is the one subject that she refuses to deal with. She said to the ACTU that she was disgusted with a member and with a union, refusing to name the member and refusing to name the union. She told the public that a line had been crossed, but refused to explain exactly what that line had been. Now—and this is why standing orders must be suspended—she says that the member is too tainted to sit with Labor in the caucus, but he is not too tainted to sit with Labor in the parliament. That is why standing orders must be suspended.

This government has no concern for the member for Dobell, as the huge absence of members opposite during his statement demonstrated. This government is only concerned with its own survival, and that is why standing orders must suspended. The Prime Minister needs to say who she believes. Does she believe the meticulous, exacting report and findings of Fair Work Australia or does she believe the member? Does she believe this meticulous report or does she believe a self-serving piece of parliamentary theatre? Standing orders must be suspended so this Prime Minister can declare who she backs. Does she back her creation, Fair Work Australia, or does she back the member whose support she is so desperately clinging to to survive in office? This is a fundamental question of integrity for the Prime Minister, and that is why it is so disgraceful that she will not stand up in this parliament and answer it.

The Prime Minister cannot avoid dealing with this fundamental choice and she should not run away from it, because Fair Work Australia and the member for Dobell both cannot be right. Either the member for Dobell has misled the parliament or Fair Work Australia is guilty of the most extraordinary incompetence, of the most remarkable conspiracy, in the long and not always glorious history of this parliament. I say to members opposite that the Australian public are watching what happens in this parliament. They are embarrassed by the revelations about the member for Dobell but more and more they are impatient and disgusted with this Prime Minister.

Standing orders should be suspended because there is nothing wrong with our country that a change of government would not improve. More particularly there is nothing wrong with this parliament that a change of government could not fix. This parliament itself is not the problem. The problem is a government and a Prime Minister that are consistently trashing, debasing and demeaning this parliament in their desperate quest to survive. This is a rotten government, a rotten Prime Minister. It should go and it should go now.

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