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

Today in question time we saw the sad, shrill spectacle of a government at war with itself and the spectacle of a Prime Minister who has always been much more effective as an alternative opposition leader than she has been as a real Prime Minister of this country.

It does not have to be like this. Our country can be better because we can have a better and more competent government. As an example of the kinds of things that can happen, I want to point to something that happened in this very parliament building when both sides of politics came together to pay tribute to Andrew Forrest and Warren Mundine for their work in securing 60,000 guaranteed jobs for Indigenous Australians. I am pleased to have the opportunity to pay tribute to Andrew Forrest in this parliament because: hasn't he been defamed by ministers of the Crown in this place far too often? I am pleased to pay tribute in this place to Warren Mundine, a great Australian who has been backstabbed too often by members opposite despite the fact that he is a former National President of the Australian Labor Party.

What happened in the Mural Hall in this parliament was that members of this place came together to do some good in a way that would have made Australians proud—to improve the lives of some of the most disadvantaged people in Australia, ensuring that kids go to school and adults go to work. It might be too much to hope for Australians more regularly to feel more proud of their parliament because we are no respecters of authority in this country, but we can be more proud in the future than we are right now. It might be too much to hope for Australians to be inspired by politicians because we look to ourselves, we look to our communities, we look to our families for inspiration, not normally our members of parliament. But we should at least be able to look at the government of this country for competence and trustworthiness. The tragedy is that we have an incompetent and untrustworthy government in this place right now.

I want to share with the House a quote, which I think everyone will find constructive. The quote runs:

The last week has seen us, the men and women of the Labor Party, focussed inwards… At times it's been ugly. I understand that. But as a result, Australians have had a gut-full of seeing us focus on ourselves.

That is not a quote from me. That is not quote from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition or the Leader of the National Party. It is a quote from the Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, on 27 February last year. One year on, exactly the same thing is happening again. Here is another quote:

And the problem for the Prime Minister and this government is that it is ultimately not them who pay the price of this instability; it is Australian families. They cease to govern, they cease to deliver, they cease to develop plans for the future—and it is Australian working families who pay that price.

That was not me yesterday, not the Deputy Leader of the Opposition the day before but the current Prime Minister on 13 September 2007.

Well, haven't things changed for her? Hasn't the worm turned? Now we have this government in crisis, in chaos, absorbed with its own troubles, at war with itself. And while the government is focused on itself and its internal wars rather than a difficult budget at a difficult time, the people of Australia are suffering.

This is a bad government, a truly bad government. I used to think that it was the worst government since Whitlam, but that is very unfair to Gough Whitlam, who never sold his soul to the Greens and never lost his principles or his ideals. This is a government that has been monumentally incompetent. On borders: remember the Prime Minister just a few years ago, when she was the shadow minister for immigration; she used to put out press releases—'Another boat. Another policy failure'. She did not put them out very often under the former government, but she would have had to have put out three in the last 24 hours under her own government.

Then of course there is the live-cattle fiasco, which put at risk our relationship with Indonesia—perhaps, in some respects, the most important relationship we have—because this was a government that panicked in the face of a television program. There is the National Broadband Network—way over budget, way behind schedule. Until recently, it had more paid staff than it had paying customers. Then of course there is the mining tax. What an extraordinary exercise in ineptitude: the first tax in the history of the Commonwealth that actually does not raise any money. It damages jobs and damages confidence without raising any money.

This is a government that is not just incompetent; it is addicted to waste. There were the school halls, at double the standard price; there were the set-top boxes, at triple the price Harvey Norman would have charged. And, of course, the one thing we will get out of the so-called media reforms this week is yet another new bureaucracy, one of dozens that this government has established. It is incompetent, it is wasteful, it is deceptive.

No Australian will ever forget that phrase that will haunt this government and this Prime Minister to its political grave: 'There will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'. But that is not the only phrase that will haunt this government. On some 160 separate occasions the Prime Minister said, 'No ifs, no buts: it will happen'—the celebrated surplus, the surplus of which the Treasurer said on some 350 separate occasions, 'It will come; come hell or high water—it will come.' Well, they are going through hell, we have had high water and we still do not have a surplus—and we never will under this government.

There is the lack of integrity. The member for Denison can testify to the lack of integrity of this government. The Prime Minister made promises to him; solemn promises in writing—it was almost a legal contract: abandoned, as soon as it suited the Prime Minister's political purposes. You know yourself, Speaker, of the squalid deals that have been done over the speakership—the betrayal of a very fine Speaker of this parliament, the member for Scullin, because it served the political interests of the Prime Minister to do a squalid deal with another member. There is the member for Dobell, for whom the Prime Minister ran a protection racket, day in, day out, week in, week out, month in, month out—until finally it served her political purposes to abandon him. Then of course there was perhaps the ultimate indication of the complete lack of integrity of this government and this Prime Minister: the Australia Day riot, orchestrated from inside her own office.

Then there is the failure of this government to uphold decent Labor values. And I speak as someone who respects the Labor Party as it has traditionally been—the Labor Party that honestly does try to do the right thing by the decent, honest workers of this country; the Labor Party that used to say, in Ben Chifley's resonant phrase, 'We are working towards a light on the hill, working for the betterment of mankind; not just here but wherever we can lend a helping hand.' How those days have gone.

We have had the attack on the former Prime Minister, the member for Griffith—the carpet bombing of the member for Griffith by ministers of the Crown in this government, against the person who until recently had been their own leader. There was the attack on foreign workers, from a party that, at least in recent times, claimed to stand up for people coming to this country from the four corners of the earth and making a home here. Now we have a government that turns a blind eye to people coming to this country illegally by boat, and going on welfare, and for its own political purposes demonises people coming legally to this country and working and contributing from day one—fine potential Australians, demonised by this government.

Then of course we have another extraordinary phrase from the Prime Minister, uttered in this parliament this week: 'Let's hear no sanctimonious nonsense about free speech.' What an extraordinary thing to be said by a Prime Minister of this country.

There is a better way. There are specific plans to give this country a strong and prosperous economy for a safe and secure future. The coalition will abolish the carbon tax, because it is the quickest way to take the pressure off the forgotten families of Australia. We will abolish the mining tax, because it is the quickest way to restore confidence and the investment and jobs that come with confidence. We will fund a tax cut without a carbon tax through dispensing with unnecessary bureaucracies and programs that involve second-guessing other levels of government. We will cut red tape costs by at least $1 billion a year by setting targets for savings and holding public servants accountable for them. We will establish, finally, in an historic move, a fair dinkum paid parental leave scheme that gives the women of this country six months at their real wage to be with their children—that treats paid parental leave as a workplace entitlement, not just a welfare one.

We will stop the boats by restoring the policies that have been proven to work. We will make government more efficient and effective through a once-in-a-decade commission of audit. There will be a level playing field between big and small businesses through a root and branch review of competition policy. We will revitalise Work for the Dole, one of the signature policies of the Howard government. Within 12 months, work will have begun on Melbourne's East West Link and on Sydney's WestConnex. The Midland Highway upgrade and the Brisbane Gateway Motorway extension will be commenced, and before the end of this decade the Pacific Highway will finally be duplicated. It can happen with a good government, a government that is competent and trustworthy.

We will reduce emissions by planting more trees, delivering better soils and using smarter technology. Rather than a carbon tax that just sends jobs overseas, there will be a one-stop shop for environmental approvals. The Australian Building and Construction Commission will be fully restored to improve productivity by $5 billion every year in that troubled industry. There will be the same penalties for union officers and company officials who commit the same offence. There will be, through working with the states and territories, more community controlled public schools and public hospitals. There will be a two-way-street version of the Colombo Plan. Our best will go to Asia, as well as Asia's best coming to this country. There will be no unexpected adverse changes to people's superannuation. There will be no cuts to defence spending, which is now at the lowest level since 1938 as a percentage of GDP. And we will at least maintain spending on medical research.

The people of Australia need to be confident that there is a plan that will bring about change for the better, a plan that will enable their lives to be safer and more secure than they are under the current government. It is a good plan that will be implemented by a good team. Sixteen members of the shadow cabinet were ministers in a good government which delivered two million more jobs, a 20 per cent boost in real pay and a doubling of the real net wealth of every Australian. Instead, what we now have is a divided and directionless Australian Labor Party waiting for the faceless men to make their move. Fifty years ago tomorrow this immortal photograph of Arthur Calwell and the faceless men was taken. They were gathering 50 years ago tomorrow. They were gathering three years ago on Kevin Rudd. Now they are gathering again for the current Prime Minister. The faceless men got rid of the member for Griffith. They are about to get rid of the member for Lalor. Let's get rid of the faceless men and give Australia a good government and a prime minister chosen by the people. I seek leave to table this fabulous photograph. (Time expired)

Leave not granted.

See this speech in context