Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

There are moments in this House where all of us are called to order in the things we are talking about and in the way we are behaving. We get to have a moment where we remember what is really important and what matters to us and to the Australian people. This is one of those moments. I want to associate myself with the comments of the member for Reid in expressing my condolences to the family of Phil Hughes and to Sean Abbott.

I do not pretend to know a lot about cricket—it is not something in my past—so I will not be speaking at length about his performance as a batsman. But I would say that for any family to lose a young man of 25, in the prime of his life and with a future ahead of him—none of us will never know now what he would have achieved—I feel so bad for his family, for his parents. It is a tragedy for anyone to lose a young man like that. I am very sorry that this has occurred. For those who do not know, an MPI is often a bit of a rambunctious occasion for the House to trade a few jibes across the chamber. Obviously that is not appropriate today and we will not conduct the rest of the debate in that way. I will just say that I think that the preference of both sides of the House would probably be that this debate not continue, but it has to continue—that is the request of the House. In that vein, I will make a few comments about some of the things that have happened this week in politics, as insignificant as they now seem to those around Australia who are mourning that loss.

It is my belief that this past week has been a little bit of a tipping point in Australia. For a year now, the Australian community has been trying to make up its mind about this Prime Minister and what it is that this man is made of. There are two incidents in the past week that I would point to that I think have been quite decisive in Australians making up their mind. The first was the announcement about making cuts to the ABC and SBS. I believe the ABC and SBS provide essential services. Representing a community that is as multicultural as mine is, I see SBS on television screens very frequently right across my electorate, and we know the important role the ABC plays in protecting Australians against natural disasters and in representing rural and regional communities. There are many Australians who are not SBS and ABC viewers—I accept that—but the really important issue is that this went right to the heart of the question of trust. Many Australians will have watched the 15 seconds of footage of Tony Abbott on the night before the election making a series of promises that there would be no cuts to education, no changes to health, no changes to the pension, no changes to the GST and, of course, no cuts to SBS of the ABC. This week we went through to the last of those. Every single one of those promises has been broken. I really think that this is the straw that broke the camel's back, as it were, for the Australian community.

I also want to make mention of the G20. What a missed opportunity it was. This was Australia's big chance, a once-in-a-generation opportunity to have global leaders come to our beautiful country and hear our big ideas for the future of the globe and our nation. What Prime Minister could not make this into a huge win for the country? Instead, we saw someone who thought it appropriate to raise political issues that were so domestic and so small-minded in nature when he had the eyes and ears of these global leaders who are so important to driving Australia's future. We saw the Prime Minister and other leaders of the government desperately trying to take climate change away from the agenda, yet because climate change is so important and so crucial to Australia's future and to the world's future it was right there in the centre of the agenda. Instead of Australia being part of that conversation and helping to shape and drive it we were left out in the cold. We had Tony Abbott, the Prime Minister, bragging about the great leap backwards on climate change while two of the biggest economies in the world made a profoundly important deal on cutting carbon emissions. I contrast that with US President Barack Obama who has, probably, similar polling problems as the Prime Minister, but that guy has got some guts, he has some energy, he has some leadership. He was willing to stand out there in front of Australians, saying what the Prime Minister should have been saying—that is, that we need to have some vision and leadership on these important issues. I will conclude my comments there.

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