Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I think this matter of public importance has become even more important as we hear speaker after speaker not changing tack on the opposite side of the House. They are committed—absolutely committed—to their unfair budget. And whatever the Prime Minister says to get votes on that side of the House—that he has changed, that he has learnt, that he has listened—obviously those speaking on the MPI did not get the speaking points. Or, what I think is more likely to be true is that they have not learnt or listened and certainly have not changed. The parliamentary secretary said that there have been extraordinary events this week and indeed that they had probably had a better week. I would have to say that that is something that I do agree with the parliamentary secretary on: the government could have had a better week.

Of course, if they were to do what the Australian people want them to do—that is, drop their unfair budget—that would be a true sign that they had listened, learnt and changed. But, of course, we do not have that. We have every single member of the cabinet saying that they are backing the GP tax, we have every single member of the cabinet saying that they agree with $100,000 degrees, we have every single member of the cabinet saying, 'Yes, we should cut the pension,' and we have every single member of the saying that they believe that we should cut the SBS and the ABC. Not only do we have every member of the cabinet saying this; we seem to have every member of the backbench saying this. They certainly were not saying this last weekend. In fact, 39 of them were obviously so upset about this. But today we have seen that the government has not changed its spots. It still continues to pursue an unfair budget that the Australian people did not vote for at the last election. Indeed, the reason why we see this unfair budget here today and why the government will not change their course is that they have not listened. They have not listened, have not changed and have not learnt.

Indeed, we know that this unfair budget is deeply unpopular in the Australian community and, indeed, deeply unpopular in the Senate. We have heard speaker after speaker get up and say, 'It's been a bad week, but we will continue to pursue it.' Indeed, we have heard even more than that. We have heard those on the opposite side say: 'It's everyone else's fault we're not popular. It's the Labor's Party's fault we're not popular. It's the Australian people's fault we're not popular. It's the Senate's fault we're not popular.' Let us give those on the opposite side the news that actually they have to change. It is not the Senate that has to change, it is not the Australian people that have to change, and it is not the Labor Party that has to change. We are standing up for people. We are standing up against the government's broken promises and giving people a voice in this place. If the Prime Minister really wants to ensure that his position is protected over the next month, two months, three months or six months then, really, what we need to see is him abandon this unfair budget and these unfair changes.

Of course, the other promise that the Prime Minister made this week was that he was going to start providing an adult government; he was going to end the chaos and start providing stable government. We know that that has not been the case previously, but he said that he had turned over a new leaf. Then we saw the debacle of the submarine decision. We have seen clearly today that the Prime Minister is going to have two choices: he is going to have to break his promise to Prime Minister Abe or break his promise to the Australian people. So someone is going to be bitterly disappointed, and I am extremely concerned that it will be the Australian people that miss out, and South Australians in particular. Poor Senator Edwards—I do not say that lightly; Senator Edwards obviously believed in good faith that the Prime Minister had struck a deal with him to ensure his leadership—was led down a garden path. He was absolutely tricked. Now we have seen that the Prime Minister has not only broken all the promises that he made before the election but also, within one or two days, broken the promise that he made to Senator Edwards. This is an appalling, chaotic way to run what is a critically important project for South Australia. If the government really have listened, learnt and changed, we will see these submarines built in South Australia, but I doubt that will happen.

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