Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Speaker. It is very important to suspend the orders in order to have the debate because Australians deserve better in terms of finding out what is going on with important policy issues. But we know that this is a government which loves to hide and which makes the Australian people seek out what they are doing. For instance, if it were not so addicted to hiding from the Australian people, where is the budget update to justify what is going on by increasing our debt to half a trillion dollars?

They have refused to provide timely and detailed information about boat arrivals and interceptions. We saw that remarkable display from the minister for immigration where, whenever he is asked a question about matters, he says, 'It's an operational matter,' or 'It's not Friday' or 'The matter is on water.' Members of the House: what boat issue is not going to be on the water? There is an arrogance creeping into this government, which has even been identified by members of the media.

Respected political commentator Laurie Oakes has written that it is disgusting and that the government is thumbing its nose at voters. In 2010 the Prime Minister said to the same respected journalist that his position did indeed change his mind in response to changing circumstances. But the only changing circumstances about the requirement for openness is that the then opposition leader was elected to be the Prime Minister. He said, 'The last thing we want to do is hide anything from the Australian people.' Before the election he said he would issue an alert whenever there was a boat coming through. Now he has gone back on that promise. We believe he said, in full disclosure: 'There is no full disclosure underway in this government.' What he and his spokesperson actually say about turning back the boats is: 'We won't tell you.'

We heard question after question today asking: how many boats are being turned back? We got the ridiculous explanation: 'If we told you how our policy is working, somehow the people smugglers would be encouraged.' Any simple exercise of logic says that, if you are beating the people smugglers, why not tell them indeed? The issue is that they are not the government that they promised to be when they were elected.

We are then told that when a boat comes into Darwin Harbour we cannot talk about that because it is not a Friday. Australians deserve better. We know that this is a government who are addicted to saying one thing in opposition and another in government. They said that Labor was scaring people about massive cuts. What do they do when they get in? They cut the superannuation benefits of 3½ million Australians.

Only a coalition addicted to secrecy could say that it is better to give a tax break to 16,000 people with $2 million in their superannuation, but for 3½ million Australians—

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