Michelle Rowland (Greenway, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications) Share this | Hansard source

The speaker opposite just finished with the words, 'It's a bit rich.' Well, it is a bit rich for the member opposite to come in here to criticise Labor's plans when they have nothing—there is nothing to debate! We have question time every day where their members can ask questions and we can ask questions of their policies and they have nothing—zip, absolutely nothing!—it was apparently all on the table.

Then we had a situation where things started getting thrown off the table, apparently with other members of their cabinet not knowing. But it is a bit rich for the member for Mitchell to come in here to start lecturing and picking holes in Labor's policies—policies which I might say have been endorsed by everyone from Jeff Kennett and ACOSS to Saul Eslake.

Anyway, I will go on. This MPI is about leadership and the failure of leadership by this Prime Minister. In my past life in the private sector I was given many opportunities to learn about leadership from others and to be taught by some of the best in the business. One thing that has always stayed with me is that leadership is about listening with empathy and responding with empathy.

I heard this Prime Minister pontificating in question time about housing prices—pontificating! I do not know what world this Prime Minister lives in, but I live in the world where you have people who have actually been married for some time still living with their parents or in-laws for years because they cannot get enough for a deposit for a new house. And at the same time I have one of the fastest-growing rates of housing in my electorate—I have one of the urban fringes. I have people who cannot afford to get into those new houses being built. We need more supply of new housing in order to ensure that these people have the best opportunities.

Now, what do I hear as I go around my electorate? What are the two biggest concerns that people raise? They are housing affordability and jobs and job security. We have proposed policies to address both, to incentivise new housing to be built and to facilitate the construction of that housing with multiplier affects not only in the construction sector but in the services sector as well. I have listened for 2½ years to those opposite talking about how they need more jobs for their 'chippies' and their tradies. Somehow they are the big friends of all small businesses! And yet when we have a policy which has one of the best of those multiplier affects—some 25,000 jobs in the construction sector—oh, no! They do not want to be anywhere near it.

This is about a failure of leadership, and I have quite an insightful headline here, 'Malcolm Turnbull fails to deliver on promise to offer economic leadership.' Now, was this written by a leftist hack? Maybe by a Labor Party stooge? Maybe a member of the Labor Party? Maybe it was some radical Marxist? No, it was written by that great Labor Party supporter, Andrew Bolt. Andrew Bolt! He said:

LIBERAL MPs are losing confidence in Malcolm Turnbull, and no wonder.

He has broken the big promise he made five months ago.

“Prime Minister (Tony Abbott)—

This is quoting the now Prime Minister—

has not been capable in providing the economic leadership our nation needs,” he thundered when he knifed Abbott last September.

“We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges ... and sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy, not slogans.”

What has happened in the meantime?

We have had not only one scare campaign but a simultaneous scare campaign about housing prices. You really have to hand it to these people. I thought they were good at scare campaigns—I did not know they could do two at once! I did not know they could do to at once in opposite directions! But I am very happy for those opposite to keep acting like an opposition, because that is exactly what the Australian public is crying out for, isn't it? Acting like an opposition.

And it is not only in economic leadership where this Prime Minister has failed. In terms of having a cohesive society, this Prime Minister consistently fails to bring into line members of the government who openly go out and bash multiculturalism and do some of the worst things not to encourage inclusiveness in our society. He says nothing. He will get up and talk about how Australia is the most successful multicultural nation in the world, but when it comes to bringing people like the member for Dawson into line he is nowhere to be seen, because he is an absolute hypocrite on that matter. (Time expired)

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