Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

This is a very important matter, because, of course, wherever you look with respect to this government, it fails to give account to the Australian people. Whether it be providing $80 billion to the big end of town or whether it's, indeed, failing to account for a number of areas of public policy, we see ministers in this government failing to be transparent and failing to account for their actions.

Of course, that's been underlined most dramatically today when we've seen again Minister Cash failing to come clean about her level of involvement—the extent and nature of her involvement—in relation to the unlawful leak to the media about the police raids on AWU offices seven months ago. For the last seven months, we've seen obfuscation and cover-up by this government. In fact, in October last year the minister, Senator Cash, in answers to questions in the Senate on five separate occasions, misled the parliament when she said that her office was not involved in unlawfully providing information to media about police raids. The fact is that since that time we have not seen any effort by the minister to account for herself, and today in a press conference she's made very clear that she will ensure she'll spend taxpayer's dollars avoiding the courts as well. This is a minister who refuses to account to the parliament and doesn't want to account to the courts. She wants to avoid accountability and does not want to tell the truth when it comes to this very serious matter, and the fact is we can't allow this to continue.

This is actually consistent with the conduct of this minister for many, many months. Firstly, we saw the minister appoint a commissioner to the ABCC who had, indeed, deliberately provided unlawful advice and placed that on the website. We saw the same minister appoint 11 consecutive employer based commissioners to the Fair Work Commission, which added to the three appointments by Senator Abetz when he was minister. That's 14 consecutive commissioners now that come from one side of the bargaining table. We've seen, of course, the efforts by the minister to avoid accountability in relation to these matters. But this matter here is of most importance, because for seven months we have had a failure to account for her conduct and the conduct of her office.

We do know, of course, that the staffer who made admissions to the minister about leaking that information has left the office of the minister. We also know that there are now four staff members of that office that have left, yet we have not actually been provided with any information as to why they have departed the minister's office. Today, of course, we've seen the court subpoena not only the minister but, indeed, the head of the Registered Organisations Commission, the former employee of the minister's office and a former employee of the Registered Organisations Commission. These matters should be answered. If the minister thinks it's okay to spend taxpayers' money to seek to set aside the subpoena so she won't account to the court, the question has to be asked: what does she have to hide? What does she have to hide to avoid these court proceedings, and why is it that, when she's been asked questions in Senate estimates and in the Senate, she has sought to claim a defence of public interest immunity to avoid answering any questions of the Senate?

The highest obligation of a minister of the Crown is to account for and be responsible for their conduct. The fact is that, under the Westminster system, ministers are responsible for the conduct of their office. So already it's clear, given the conduct of the office of Minister Cash, that she should have already resigned. She should have resigned seven months ago. Since then she has failed to answer any questions in relation to further conduct by that office, and the conduct of herself, and for that reason she should be censured by the parliament and she should resign or, indeed, if she fails to resign, the Prime Minister should sack her.

The Prime Minister in the last seven months has defended the minister when she has refused to answer any questions in relation to this matter. This is a sordid saga. This is a seven-month scandal that will not go away. There will be court proceedings that will, of course, be heard in several months. Meanwhile, we have a minister who refuses to do her job. We have a minister who refuses to attend Senate estimates late yesterday and, indeed, all of today. She's in the building, she's in the parliament and she's there to do her day job, but she doesn't turn up to do that. The fact is you cannot continue to have a minister who represents the junior minister at the table in the Senate not turn up to act on his behalf. She's scheduled to turn up. She's actually in attendance in the parliament but refuses point blank to turn up to the Senate budget estimates and answer questions. Well, frankly, this is an untenable position for Minister Cash and this is an untenable position for the Prime Minister too. He cannot keep defending the indefensible in relation to this matter. There is no defence to suggest that the minister is not answerable to the parliament. The fact is she continues, of course, to argue otherwise.

It's not just in relation to Minister Cash that we see this lack of accountability; it also applies to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has failed the Australian people. The Prime Minister seeks to introduce his central tax plan to provide $80 billion of taxpayers' money to the big end of town. Frankly, this is very unfair on working people. This is very, very unfair on the millions of working people who require some support. It's unfair that we would seek to provide $80 billion of taxpayers' money to the big end of town and, at the same time, deprive workers of a decent wage increase. We've seen wages stagnating in this country. On 1 July this year there's a second round of penalty rate cuts for retail and hospitality workers. There's a bill that could be introduced into this parliament today by the minister at the table that would have the effect of stopping the penalty rates decision in its tracks and stopping further cuts, and yet, of course, we see the minister at the table, the Prime Minister and Minister Cash refuse to accept the argument that those workers should not have their wages cut in real terms.

This disregard for working people is quite remarkable from a Prime Minister who likes to argue that he cares about the Australian workforce. Frankly, if you look at the record of the Australian Prime Minister, he has no regard for the Australian workforce. He has no regard for hardworking people—middle-class and working-class Australians—who are struggling to make ends meet. All they wish to have is a decent pay raise. Of course we are not surprised that the Prime Minister doesn't have any empathy for these workers because, frankly, he doesn't understand. He does not understand the concerns, the needs and the aspirations of these workers. The Prime Minister likes to pretend he has regard for them, but he feels comfortable in the boardroom and he feels uncomfortable in workplaces. This is a Prime Minister who has invented a log cabin story. This is a Prime Minister who pretends he has a log cabin story, except, of course, the logs were made of bars of gold. The fact is this Prime Minister has never financially struggled in his life, and he has never had any regard for working people in his country. He never regards them when he introduces his policies.

The most remarkable thing is that we know that trickle-down economics don't work, but it works for the very few, including the Prime Minister. The richest man in the parliament, the biggest shareholder in the parliament, will be the biggest beneficiary of the trickle-down economics that are being introduced by this parliament. The budget is, of course, the values and the priorities of the Prime Minister writ large. He is a person who has no interest in working people. He is a former merchant banker who spends more time talking to bankers than he does talking to workers. It's this lack of accountability and this lack of regard for working people that we see every day in this place from this Prime Minister. That's the reality, whether it's Minister Cash, who refuses to appear in the parliament and is spending taxpayers' money refusing to go to court, or a Prime Minister who has no interest and lives in his social citadel at Point Piper instead of looking after decent working people in this country and giving those workers a pay rise.

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