Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I can assure you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that I have no props with me today! In question time today, the Prime Minister was asked a question about delivering on the government's plan, and he used the few minutes that he had available to him to have a go at us on this side—as he does in answer to every question. It really was disappointing to think that we have a Prime Minister, elected just this year, who cannot even find three minutes worth of achievements to talk about in question time on the last parliamentary sitting day of this year.

He talked about his plan. Let's have a look at the achievements of the Prime Minister's plan. He talked about jobs and growth all through the election—'Never been a more exciting time to be alive.' So far this year we have lost 100,000 full-time jobs and we have octupled the deficit. The previous member who spoke talked about the economic rigour of those opposite and the fiscal discipline of those opposite. Well, the 2015-16 budget deficit blew out eightfold—from $4.7 billion to just under $40 billion. I did not think that I would ever get the chance of using the word 'octupled' in the parliament, but I get to use it because they have octupled the deficit.

They have cut $30 billion from schools. This is perhaps the thing that disappoints so many people most about the Prime Minister and about the old Malcolm Turnbull they knew. When we used to ask the old Malcolm Turnbull about schools, he would say, 'I went to school with David Gonski'—wink, wink, nudge, nudge, 'I am going to fully fund our schools, because I am on a unity ticket with the man who came up with the Gonski school funding reforms.' But, no, those cuts of $30 billion have stayed. There are 130,000 fewer apprentices than we had when Labor left government.

So what instead have those opposite focused on? They have focused on the big issues, haven't they? They have focused on repealing 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act—because it is so important that people have the opportunity of being bigots whenever they want. They have focused on the ABCC—treating a million Australians as though they are guilty until they can prove that they are innocent; building workers being treated worse than drug dealers, as criminals. And then there is the $200 million on a wasteful and divisive plebiscite.

But they are not the only achievements of this government. There is the guns for votes scandal. There is Tony Abbott stalking Malcolm Turnbull—the member for Warringah stalking the Prime Minister. There is the Prime Minister taking orders from the Minister for Immigration and the far Right of the Liberal Party. There is the Bob Day vote scandal, where the government were taking votes from someone they believed was improperly elected to the Senate. There is the Attorney-General being prepared to give away hundreds of millions of Commonwealth taxpayers' dollars to his mates in Western Australia. There is the Attorney-General versus the Solicitor-General, with the wrong one resigning. There is the Attorney-General appointing 37 people to jobs worth well over $300,000 a year without any proper process before the election. Ironically, there is the Attorney-General calling other people 'very mediocre'. There is the Treasurer introducing legislation, with great fanfare, with a $107 million black hole in it. There is the foreign minister sending 23 public servants to Paris for a conference on cost cutting. I can give her a clue about where she can start with the cost cutting. There is the education minister who spent $10 million on an advertising campaign that government legal advice says might not have been legal.

This is the first majority government in more than 50 years to lose control of the House of Representatives. Today they twice forgot to vote in divisions, despite the fact that they were already in here for a previous division. They were sitting there and they forgot to vote. This is a government that let the Senate run out of legislation to debate. This is a government that, for the first time since Federation, voted to condemn itself. This is a government that set aside $300 million to tackle ice and so far has not spent that money on frontline services, while cutting existing services like the Haymarket clinic, in my electorate, that was already serving drug- and alcohol-affected homeless people. This is a Prime Minister who has lost control of his party, has lost control of his parliament and has got no plan.

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