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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a Leader of the Opposition who is into the politics of confrontation, aggression and conflict. That is what defines him—his— very meaning because he does not want to engage in a debate about substance and policy. Here we are, one week after the budget and the coalition are moving a suspension of standing orders, not to debate the economic policy and their alternative—which he gave on the Thursday night, which had no substance at all—not to debate the economic impact of what is occurring in Europe, not to debate the impact of what is happening with employment, climate change, social policy, transport policy, health policy and education policy. No. On 58 separate occasions they have moved a suspension of standing orders. That is why you just cannot take them seriously.

The opposition said before, 'This is a suspension of standing orders to have a censure debate. We don't do that very often.' Thirty-four times they have done it—they are delusional, and the parliament is only halfway through the term—out of the 58 suspensions. They are so delusional.

It is as though they go into the office of the Manager of Opposition Business for tactics every morning. They ask: 'What will we do today?' The 30 of them who sit on the 'tactics committee' have a debate and they all disagree, so they end up settling on: 'I know, we'll do what we did yesterday.' It is groundhog day because, no matter what is happening in the economy, today we had a few questions about the company in Kurri Kurri. You would think the opposition would want a debate on it. No, no. The Leader of the Opposition—the workers' friend—will be up there on Saturday, with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, saying that it is all a result of the carbon price, but he is actually not prepared to debate the substance. I will tell you what I have been doing today, as a minister of the Crown: I have introduced five pieces of legislation, including legislation to create a national maritime regulator benefiting the economy by $30 billion over 20 years. I have introduced legislation to reform the Navigation Act. The act has been there since 1912 and still has provisions in it to allow a master of a ship to shoot someone and to be immune from prosecution. It still has provisions in it that the master has to be informed if a lunatic is coming on board. That could be appropriate! But we have reformed it—done major reform. We have announced a $20 million package to help exports in Tasmania, with my Tasmanian Labor colleagues and the member for Denison, who lobbied for this project. What did they do about it? Nothing. I will tell you what we have done. We are continuing to work on the Pacific Highway. What are they doing? Sledging it and saying no to it.

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