Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I do indeed second the amendment moved by the Manager of Opposition Business. We have had barely a week of sittings, and the parliament has been reduced to a shambles by this mob opposite. We had three years of minority government; it functioned well. We were in control not just every day, not just every hour and not just every minute but every second—every second of every sitting day we controlled the agenda in this House. The other mob: three days and it fell apart.

So upset were they with each other, they were running for the doors just to get away from each other. I thought to myself, 'What is the precedent of people running from parliament?' I say this in the hope that those brilliant producers at Insiders will be listening and will get out the footage of the gazelle who ran away from a division to try to avoid voting during that parliament. They ran away from the parliament.

Yesterday we had scenes in the Senate where people were not running anywhere, but perhaps they should have been. I think Senator McKenzie regrets not running from the parliament. That embarrassing performance—the depiction of a government without an agenda and whose senior members were incapable of giving a stump speech about their achievements one year into the government—said it all.

The real problem here is that the Leader of the House and the Government Whip and the people who missed the vote missed the vote. They missed a vote. What should have happened then? Should there have been some punishment for the Leader of the House? Perhaps. Should there have been some punishment or penalty against the Chief Government Whip? That has happened. That is a rotating door. She is the third one they have had during their first term of office, so we know there are lots of precedents for that. No, they have not done that. There was no action against the Leader of the House, no action against the Chief Government Whip, no action against the ministers who missed the vote and no action against the backbenchers who missed the vote. The action is against the parliament itself. They come in here and they say, 'We know the way to avoid missing a vote in parliament: we will stop the parliament sitting!'

This year we will sit for 51 days in total. We sat for three days—one day of which was ceremonial, and the second day of the actual sittings did not work out too well. So we are back here this week and then we are off again for another three weeks. This is a government in search of an agenda and in search of a reason for existence. 'What is the purpose of Malcolm Turnbull?' is what people are asking.

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