Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

What I say today is not addressed to the government, because Australia no longer has a functioning government. What I say today is not addressed to the coalition or the Liberal Party, because they have no leader of the Liberal Party. The Liberal Party, whatever it does today and tomorrow, is irreparably split. What we have seen in the last few days is a government and a Liberal Party who know that they need to focus on the needs of the people, but they just cannot help themselves.

No-one in this parliament in the last decade can hold their head high about bitterness and argument, but I recognise that Labor has learned its lesson over the last five years. But now the government is proposing to adjourn the parliament. To adjourn the parliament would imply somehow that the parliament does not have pressing matters before it. It most certainly does. To adjourn the parliament would be an admission that the parliament has failed. It is not the parliament that has failed; it is the Turnbull Liberal government in this country which has failed. The country doesn't need a different Liberal leader; it needs a different government. The government may adjourn the parliament but it cannot outrun the weight of failure of this government.

The people of Australia must be watching and wondering. Surely, in the bubble which passes for the current government members of parliament—obsessed as they are with their hatreds and disagreements—surely, they can hear how appalled Australians are? Surely, the members of this parliament who currently compose the government must be hearing from them in emails and phone calls? They must be talking to people, out in their constituencies, who are saying, 'What on earth are you doing?'

Today we said to the government that we wouldn't call divisions whilst their party room met, if their party room meets. We've been prepared to offer flexibility to the government. But to simply adjourn the parliament is the final admission. I said on Tuesday that this is a government which had lost the will to live. But I don't think even on Tuesday we could have seen the cannibalistic behaviour of a government that is eating itself alive. There is no doubt in my mind that the people of Australia think that the system is broken.

What will happen, if the parliament adjourns, is that business will still go on being business and the workers will still go to work. But the job of government is to uplift the nation's vision. This nation has serious issues which it must address. The job of the government is to outline the future. The people of Australia, those who voted for the government and those who didn't, consent to the outcome of elections because they believe that the party who forms the government will keep on governing. There are issues in this country which everyday Australians expect the government to answer. But not only is the government paralysed by in-fighting; it is now not even going to bother to have the parliament meet at all. This is the ultimate admission of surrender, of a bankrupt government—of a failed government.

The people in Australia want to see proper wages policy, but they don't get that from the government. The people in Australia want a resolution to rising energy prices, and they are not getting this from the government. The people in Australia want an end to the decline of apprenticeships in this country. The people in Australia want to see properly-funded child care. The people in Australia want to see pensioners get a better deal. The people in Australia want to see our schools properly funded.

See this speech in context