Graham Perrett (Moreton, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I love music and have a soft spot for a top 40 list. So here's my top 40 coalition countdown of incompetence. No. 40: the NBN rollout—a lesson in incompetence. Our internet speed has gone from 30th in the world down to 68th. No. 39: spending taxpayer money buying air purifiers for the prime ministerial residence while the rest of the country endured some of the worst air quality in the world. Buying a sous vide machine—something I had to Google, but apparently it's very big on MasterChef. No. 38: deploying the robodebt scheme against one million Australians. It was like attack dog on our own citizens, but when the coalition got to court, they said, 'We agree. We don't have an argument. We agree we got it wrong.'

No. 37: privatising the Australian visa-processing system and accidentally recording a $165,000 donation to the Liberal Party from Scott Briggs' Southern Strategy. Only two consortiums are bidding for the $1 billion visa contract, and one is Australian Visa Processing, a company linked to Scott Briggs. No. 36: the Reserve Bank downgrading forecasts for economic growth for the third time since the May election. No. 35: claiming that electric vehicles were set to 'end the weekend' while the rest of the world actually embraces electric vehicles. No. 34: another big drop in retail sales data in December. No. 33: Australians struggling with stagnant wages, record levels of household debt and sky-rocketing bills. No. 32: our new minister for resources and water is the government's biggest advocate of nuclear power and a dedicated opponent to global action on climate change.

No. 31: one year after the banking royal commission and only six of the 76 recommendations have been fully implemented. Don't forget they voted against that 26 times. No. 30: mismanaging the NDIS by taking $4.6 billion out of the scheme and away from vulnerable Australians who need support. No. 29: repealing the medevac bill, which allowed people who need urgent medical treatment to come to Australia to receive it. No. 28: ignoring the RBA governor's call to bring forward infrastructure spending to stimulate the sluggish economy. No. 27: overpromising and underdelivering on infrastructure by $5 billion over their first five budgets. No. 26: refusing to fast track the Coopers Plains rail crossing in Moreton—a dangerous level crossing that puts lives at risk every day.

No. 25: breaking their promise to release a draft bill for a national integrity commission by the end of last year. No. 24: failing to tackle corruption and promote integrity by establishing the aforementioned Commonwealth integrity commission. No. 23: failing to answer serious questions about the Minister for Energy and Emissions Reduction and his dodgy document. No. 22: treating the ministerial standards like an optional extra. No. 21: talking about themselves. No. 20: fighting amongst themselves. No. 19: on the day parliament came back to remember bushfire victims, the National Party had a blue. No. 18: they're more worried about the marketing spin than a plan for all Australians. No. 17: the Auditor-General's report into the orchestrated misuse of sports grants recognised it was used as part of the coalition's re-election strategy.

No. 16: ripping off fair dinkum grassroots sports clubs in the aforementioned sports rorts. No. 15: using federal taxpayer money for political purposes by having LNP candidates—including in my electorate—announce successful grants funding for local clubs and not telling the actually elected sitting MP. No. 14: defending their sports rorts by claiming it was funding female change rooms but actually rejecting 12 applications to build female change rooms. No. 13: another sports rort where clubs didn't even have the chance to apply, and the only guidelines seemed to be electoral boundaries. No. 12: the former sports minister having to resign for an undeclared conflict of interest.

No. 11: childcare costs going up by 34 per cent under the coalition. No. 10: wholesale power prices going up by a whopping 158 per cent. We're in the top ten now. No. 9: aged-care waiting lists blowing out by a massive 300 per cent. No. 8: the minister for aged care falsely claiming that the plan to privatise aged-care assessments was supported by the royal commissioners. In an extraordinary intervention, the aged-care royal commissioners publicly corrected the minister. No. 7: a scathing interim report by the aged-care royal commission simply titled, 'Neglect'. No. 6: leadership spills. No. 5: no energy policy. No. 4: almost no action at all on climate change. No. 3: failure to meet our Kyoto targets, and we're not on track to meet the Paris targets either. No. 2: an old favourite that's been around for over a decade and often sung on that side of the parliament—failure to have any climate change policy at all. And No. 1, with a bullet—absolute failure to lead during the catastrophic bushfires over this 'black summer'. The Prime Minister didn't lead; in fact, the Waikiki kid left the country. I do love a top 40, but it is less than 30 months until the Australian people can throw this lot out.

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