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

Madam Deputy Speaker, standing orders should be suspended because, I tell you what, the Sussex Street squad are not just coming for the Prime Minister, they are coming for the Deputy Prime Minister too. We all know the minister for workplace relations wants to be the Treasurer in the government of the member for Griffith. That is why standing orders should be suspended.

This is a Prime Minister who consistently runs away from facing up to this parliament, who consistently runs away from giving an account of her stewardship to the Australian people, and you would think that after two long years of failure the least she would try to do is come into this parliament and give an explanation of what has happened in this time. Two years ago she said that a good government had lost its way. That is what the Prime Minister said, and standing orders should be suspended so she can explain exactly what she meant by that. We know that when the Prime Minister said a good government had lost its way she did not actually believe that; because, just a few months ago, when she was again challenged by the member for Griffith, she said that it was not a good government, it was an absolutely shambolic government and it was completely paralysed by the ineptitude and the incompetence of the member for Griffith. But she did pledge that she would provide a better government and that she would give us a better way on border protection, a better way on climate change policy, a better way on the mining tax.

But, as the people of Australia well know—and this is why standing orders should be suspended—the government has just got worse and worse. This is a bad government getting worse, and every day its failures become more apparent. It is a government which is incompetent and untrustworthy. It has got the Midas touch in reverse. The only thing that this government is good at is savagery against anyone who dares to stand up against it, and that is why standing orders should be suspended. We only have to look at what the current Deputy Prime Minister said about the member for Griffith, and this is why standing orders should be suspended: so that the Prime Minister can explain herself. Why did she put the Deputy Prime Minister up to say that the member for Griffith has no Labor values and never had any? Why did she put up the member for Bendigo to go out there and carpet-bomb the reputation of the former Labor Prime Minister of this country, calling him a psychopath with an ego problem? And what does it say—and this is why standing orders should be suspended—about this Prime Minister and about these ministers at the table that 31 members of caucus were prepared to back a 'psychopath' against the current incumbent Prime Minister?

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