Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I have said it three times. Calm down over there. What no-one, no observer of this chamber, should apologise for is the claim that this Speaker is biased. What no person in the chamber should ever apologise for is stating that this is a government without an agenda. Look at it at the moment. We have all these ministers who are meant to be in charge of things, who are actually meant to be governing, hanging around for the debate, hanging around because they think it is fun. Why do they think their entire backbench has stayed here for my speech? They are not ringing their local radio stations to talk about the budget. They are not actually getting out in their electorates to talk about anything that the government is doing. It is much safer for them to be in here because then they do not have to talk about the cuts to schools, they do not have to talk about cuts to education, they do not have to talk about anything on the government's agenda.

I just saw it from you then: as I speak you give that slight shake of your head, and when government ministers speak you give them the constant nod. The subtle rallying is something that has characterised your speakership.

If the words of this resolution before the parliament are serious, given what I have said in this speech, the Leader of the House will withdraw the resolution, because what he is requesting here has already been done. It has been done in the course of this speech. It has been done repeatedly in the course of this speech. If he is just playing politics, this resolution will go to the vote. Let me make this clear: having said a number of times during this speech that if a fact was incorrect then I am sorry that occurred, do not think I am going to say it again because the Leader of the House uses his numbers in this House. If that means you name me straight after this vote then so be it. If that is what this House has come to then so be it.

I am not going to be in a situation where a government uses its majority to demand members of parliament to make particular statements. I am not going to be in that situation. Sure, there are some parliaments in the world where this happens. North Korea probably does stuff like this. There are some parliaments of the world where they think, 'Oh, we've got a majority. Let's make someone say something that they don't want to say.'

These are the same people who in the debate on 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act talk about freedom of speech. They talk about freedom of speech. For a whole week, whenever we raised a point, you said, 'This is the week of freedom of speech.' Well, what is today? What is today, when we have the Leader of the House moving a resolution to demand that particular words be said by a member of parliament? What has happened to Australian democracy if the parliament is such that elected members of parliament get told what to say by Christopher Pyne? What has the parliament come to? What sort of democracy or freedom of speech credentials can those opposite claim if they actually think it is smart, if they actually think they are sending a clever message to the community, by saying to the Australian people, 'We'll use our parliamentary majority to demand that members of the Labor Party will say what we tell them to say'?

Well, Madam Speaker, be on notice: I won't. Be on notice, Madam Speaker. I am not going to be in a situation where a vote of this parliament demands me to make comments. I have already said everything that this resolution requires in this speech. All those words have been said. If they continue with this resolution, do not forget what this parliament has become. If they continue with this resolution, do not forget the extent of the political games that are being played. What is happening here by any definition is an embarrassing bad story for a party that wants to talk about freedom of speech. No matter how bad it is for them, it is better than talking about the budget. No matter how bad or embarrassing this is for them, they think this is better than talking about cuts to health, cuts to education and what they are doing to the pension.

I know the Leader of the House has had a bad day. I know the Leader of the House has had one of his closest factional colleagues become a minister in the Labor government of South Australia. I have some sympathy for the Leader of the House in that regard. If the Leader of the House wants me to say how sorry I am for him, he will not need a resolution of the House; I will happily offer those words to him.

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