Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for his question. As we come toward Christmas, Australians will be thinking about this parliamentary year. They will be thinking about the performance of the Leader of the Opposition. They will be talking about whether they believe that this Leader of the Opposition is a trustworthy individual and whether his character determines if he could be properly considered to be the leader of this country. You know what, Mr Speaker? I think we have demonstrated at every turn during this parliamentary year that this Leader of the Opposition, on every test, fails the basic question of trust. He says outside of this parliament that he is supporting Australian workers, that he wants to put Australian workers first, yet we find out that, when he was the employment minister, he signed a secret deal with fast-food companies, including McDonald's, to allow hundreds of workers in to displace Australian workers. And, worse than that, he then said, to provide some sort of cover, that: no, no—he was bringing workers in to work in the mines; that it was the mining boom; 457 worker numbers spiked because he was bringing workers in to work in the mines. But he was found out, and he failed the character test yet again.

The difficulty is that it goes beyond that for this Leader of the Opposition because he is also, as we found out this week, signing other deals. He is signing other deals and he is consorting, as it turns out, through his CFMEU links, with criminals and thugs—people that have been convicted of criminal offences. And that is the reality of this Leader of the Opposition.

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