Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

If only we could repeal these things. There is the $80 billion worth of cuts to health and education—to doctors and nurses, and to teachers. If only we could repeal the low wage growth and the smashed business confidence. If only we could repeal the fact that they have doubled the deficit and pushed unemployment up.

Mr Danby interjecting—

And now, as the member for Melbourne Ports so kindly points out, the Australian dollar, which was at US$1.08, is now at US$0.60. There is all of this going on.

Of course, we know about some of the other things the new Prime Minister has repealed. He repealed his commitment to the republic. He repealed his commitment to marriage equality. He repealed his commitment to climate change. These are the things that were repealed in the quest to get the crown. He has repealed his commitment to water reform in this country by giving the River Murray to Barnaby Joyce and the National Party.

This is the greatest act of vandalism to John Howard's legitimate commitment and reforms in this area—the greatest act of vandalism to that legacy that one could see—giving the River Murray to the irrigators. We know the effect of that downstream in Adelaide. We know the effect of that. The river's mouth is almost closed up as it is, and we are heading towards drought-like conditions. It has been a very dry winter, and we are headed for a very long, hot summer. And we have a Prime Minister who was water minister when Howard handed down his reforms, and what have they done? They have given the River Murray to Barnaby Joyce. And if anyone thinks that is going to be popular in South Australia or with Australians who care about the environment you have another thing coming.

We know these things are repealed temporarily; they are a cobbled-together solution for a cobbled-together government. And we know that they are likely to be repealed themselves at some point, just like the Dairy Adjustment Act and the International Monetary Agreements Act 1959—these redundant acts—as will the redundant convictions of this new Prime Minister, with his cobbled-together, ramshackle and divided government. We know that these commitments given to the right wing of his party will be repealed in due course, when the subterranean conviction of this Prime Minister resurfaces later. We know it cannot be dormant for long, given his ego. He thinks he is smarter than everyone else he has ever met in his life. We know the consequences of that: it will be civil war in the Liberal Party.

The public may well be tempted to vote for Mr Turnbull. But if they vote for Mr Turnbull, they will get civil war in this government—a delayed civil war. It is delayed by his repealing his convictions to the republic, to marriage equality and to climate change. But that state of affairs cannot last and eventually there will be civil war in the Liberal Party and in the government. People may well vote for Mr Turnbull and get someone else. They may well get Scott Morrison, because we now know that the Liberal Party is capable of anything! They are capable of removing a sitting Prime Minister.

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