Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Watson from moving the following motion immediately—

That the House:

(1) notes:

(a) this House has unanimously asked the High Court to determine whether the Deputy Prime Minister is constitutionally qualified to be a Member of parliament and thereby to determine if the Government has a majority;

(b) the Deputy Prime Minister has admitted he was a citizen of a foreign power right up until the weekend and has already started campaigning for the New England by-election;

(c) former Minister Matt Canavan has resigned from Cabinet and will not vote in the Senate until the High Court resolves doubts about his constitutional qualifications;

(d) the Prime Minister is continuing to accept the Deputy Prime Minister’s vote in this House even though it means that victims of the banks are denied the Royal Commission they’ve been calling for and Australians continue to have their penalty rates cut; and

(e) the situation with his Deputy Prime Minister is unsustainable; and

(2) therefore, calls on the Prime Minister to:

(a) admit his continued reliance on the Deputy Prime Minister’s vote is causing real harm to the people of Australia;

(b) rule out accepting the vote of the Deputy Prime Minister while his constitutional qualifications are in doubt; and

(c) direct the Deputy Prime Minister to immediately resign from Cabinet.

The Prime Minister told the truth today when he said he was transparent. When the Prime Minister said he was transparent, he was spot on, because no-one has missed the transparency of a Prime Minister who will do and say anything to cling to office. This is an illegitimate government throwing a tantrum, and as they throw a tantrum and throw the toys in every direction, they don't care who they contradict, even when it's themselves. They're willing to jeopardise a relationship and create a new international incident with New Zealand, they're willing to jeopardise arguments they made as recently as Monday, they're willing to undo the arguments that they made when Senator Canavan resigned and they're willing to completely undo the arguments that they put in place when the Greens resignations took place.

The Prime Minister will probably get up in the House later and be very passionate, but in order to believe what the Prime Minister says today you have to ignore what he said last week. This issue is exactly the same as everything that we get from this Prime Minister. In issue after issue, no matter how much passion he brings to the table, you can only believe what he says today if you ignore what he used to say. It's not long ago that we heard it was incredible sloppiness on the part of the Greens party, and administratively just how hopeless they were—

See this speech in context