Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

He is still at the Press Club giving the longest most waffling speech of all time. They sent in the poor old parliamentary secretary, the member for Hume—the Ronald Reagan of Australian politics, with his Reagan era slogans and his Reagan era belief in the trickle-down economics model that has been so categorically discredited and disproved. The Reagan of this parliament came in and said: 'Guess what? I have a big surprise for everyone. It's a massive shock. You're going to be amazed!' It turns out, for economic growth—I know you guys are going to be amazed—you need productivity. My God! We were shocked. We were amazed by his economic insight.

This is a man who spoke for most of his speech about his management consultancy background. He did come in with his little bit of advice for us, it turns out, that productivity matters. But hang on a minute—what is his portfolio? Is it cities? It is. He is the parliamentary secretary for cities. Isn't that fantastic! Isn't about 83 per cent of our economic activity taking place in Australia's cities? It is about that. You would think that a parl sec for cities would come in here and talk about productivity. You would think that he would connect the dots and talk about productivity in our cities. Maybe that will be part of their plan. Maybe they will think about the need to increase the productivity of cities—along with liveability and sustainability.

What did he talk about? He had nothing to say about improving the productivity of our cities. He had nothing to say about the fact that under this government public sector investment in infrastructure has collapsed by 20 per cent. He had nothing to say about the fact that this government has taken away funding for public transport. He had nothing to say about the fact that this is a government that cares so little about productivity that instead of getting on with a real tax reform debate all they have been prepared to do is flop around with ideas, run things up flagpoles and pop up balloons.

And what do you see? What is the consequence, for the nation, of these failures? We have a Treasurer who is channelling the Prime Minister by being a world-class waffler at the Press Club. And wasn't that a train wreck! We have a Prime Minister who is channelling the guy he deposed. Imagine being the member for Warringah in today's question time. Wouldn't you be sitting there going, 'Oh, my God! What on earth.' I am a much better Abbott than this guy is, yet they put him in. Seriously, Malcolm, you are not as good an Abbott as Abbott. If you are going to be Abbott you might as well have the actual Abbott. I bet you guys who voted for Tony are saying, 'We were right.' Why did all you guys vote for Malcolm? There was no change. Surely, if you were in that party room, right now, you would be thinking, 'I wonder if all that pain was worth it?'

The Prime Minister is a second-rate Abbott. The Treasurer is a second-rate Prime Minister. And what is the consequence for the nation? They cannot even work out what they want to do with CGT. Yesterday, the Prime Minister was in here saying, 'That is no part of our thinking, whatsoever.' What happened last night? We found out that, in fact, touching the CGT was part of their thinking. How did we find out? The Prime Minister's own office leaked against the Prime Minister! What an own goal. Let's be honest. Anyone in this government could have leaked it. You all want to. I have read your talking points from today. I have had a sense of deja vu, during the course of this debate, having already read what you were going to say.

Putting that to one side, we all know that this is a Prime Minister who has no idea of what is going to happen with tax reform. To be proven so clearly, today—and for him to stand up in question time and try to convince us that even though we had repeated the words that he had said, somehow, the rest of the world was wrong, because Malcolm could not possibly, just demonstrates the hubris of— (Time expired)

See this speech in context