David Gillespie (Lyne, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I would like to start by echoing the very eloquent and moving contribution of the member for Reid and take this opportunity to extend my condolences to family and friends of Phil Hughes. I thought it was important that you acknowledged the terrible circumstances that Sean Abbott must also be facing at this time. If he and those close to him can understand that in this place we are thinking of him, I think that is a useful contribution we can all make. I am a cricket follower and have had the pleasure also of watching Phil Hughes play. Regardless of his status as a sportsman, I think the thing we should all be reflecting on is on the tragedy of a young life full of promise, full of aspirations—aspirations that are very public, having regard to the nature of his calling and his talents—a young life very tragically cut short. I am sure, as you have noted, Deputy Speaker, and the member for Throsby as well, that there might be another opportunity for us to appropriately recognise the tragic events that the member for Reid has brought before us today.

Having said that, we are here to debate a matter of public importance, and it is a matter of genuine public importance. I would like to raise one critical question that I believe underpins the matter before this House: can it be said that the grown-ups are in charge of Australia's government today? Today we had an extraordinary question time which followed what has been an extraordinary week in Australian politics. What I think this week shows us, about 14 months into the life of this government, is that it emphasises that after hubris must come nemesis. Pride will always come before a fall.

When I think of members opposite talking about an age of entitlement, I think really of the behaviour of members opposite, in particular the now Treasurer when he made his infamous speech in London on this topic, their entitlement to rule. While it has been said often this is a government that said one thing before the election and another after, I think the failings of this government are much, much worse than this. For all the arrogance, their sense of entitlement, this born to rule attitude, seems to exist only in the hearts and perhaps in the mirrors of government ministers. The record now speaks for itself. We have before us a litany of failure, as highlighted most effectively in the health portfolio this week, I was going to say by my friend, the member for Ballarat, but really by the full range of government ministers and members from the Prime Minister down. We have seen the chaos and confusion extend to broken promises and misunderstandings between the Prime Minister and senior minister over the status of decision making in relation to the national broadcaster. The Leader of the Opposition spoke about a mood of disappointment in the community, but in this I fear he was being very generous.

I asked about whether the grown-ups are in charge. The evidence of this week is pretty clear, but I will add to that. Being grown-up should mean being able to admit mistakes and being able to say sorry. Clearly, members opposite have had plenty of practice and plenty of opportunities to learn this lesson. Sadly, practice does not make perfect.

I want to touch very briefly on the two additional matters beyond the competence head that this matter of public importance puts before the House. Firstly, to talk about broken promises, it is extraordinary how this government has sought to rewrite the history of their commitments to the Australian people prior to the election. But I do not want to touch on the specific commitments, all of which I think have been broken, but I do want to speak on the biggest broken promise of all, which is the now Prime Minister's insistence that he would restore trust in politics. He spoke at great length on this. By the standards of this week, we might call these rhetorical flourishes. Since then we have seen the eroding of trust every day; the eroding of faith in politics. This is a government that has become mean and tricky very early. This is compounded by the contempt it shows not just for the Labor Party but for this parliament and, through it, for the Australian people.

But the biggest failing of all is the poverty of this government's vision, shown on the world stage by the G20, where the Prime Minister chooses to whinge about the attitudes of the Australian people rather than be a constructive middle power and global actor. In this government they are indeed rebels without a cause, defining themselves by the things they are against, which is the modern Australian social compact.

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