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

I acknowledge the interjection from the former future Deputy Speaker. I acknowledge his interjection as he leaves the room. His interjection matches the contribution that he has made to the parliament, and the parliament has already had a chance to vote specifically on a vote about him.

What I will say, on what people were told by their constituents and what they told them: count the number of votes you've had on substantive matters. Count the number of votes you've had this term, and count up how many times your contribution to the parliament has been that someone who disagrees with you won't be heard. I think you'll find it's a majority of votes you've been in. That's what's happened. I don't doubt the goodwill of people when they first run for parliament. I don't doubt, with people who we fought in marginals or who took on safe seats for those opposite, that while we have different views there is goodwill and there are good reasons that people want to be here. But then they arrive and discover the only agenda from this government, the only agenda that this government has, is to vote to silence members of the opposition and to make sure that the Leader of the Opposition, whenever he stands up on a suspension, gets four words out and no more. That's what the Prime Minister, who normally sits in that chair, hasn't just reduced the parliament to—he's reduced your contribution to that as well. This is real. I don't doubt that you came here for good reasons—different policy views, but good reasons—for what you believed you could achieve. Look at how that man who normally sits there is making you vote, and think about the contribution and the aspirations that you had and what your contribution is being reduced to.

Today, you get to have a little bit more. You're not just being asked to silence opposition members; you're being asked to put off something substantive. You're being asked to put off a bill about multinational tax reform. To use the Prime Minister's trick, hands up how many of you know why. How many of you know why it's being put off? This is a bill that's gone through your party room. You've had a minister stand up in the party room and tell you why this was a good thing to support, and you've all agreed it should be supported. Every office was delivered the blue today and you were told this is what we'd be debating next. Now, all of a sudden, you're not and you haven't been told why. The parliament hasn't been told why.

Don't think that this room doesn't matter. This room is not a bubble. This room is the heart of democracy in Australia, and that's why you contested elections and that's why your constituents voted for you. The man who normally sits in that chair opposite has reduced your contribution to your principal role being to silence people with a different view—which makes the term 'debating chamber' a bit odd—and now to get rid of a bill about multinational tax reform without telling any of you why.

I'm not pretending that this speech will make a difference to the vote that follows. But all of you are involved in conversations in your parties and, if you cared enough to run for parliament, you should use those conversations to make this a parliament again. It should be one. We should be proud that we have been chosen by our electorates to come here and represent their interests and we should be confident enough of our different views that we can debate them out and argue them out and then the public could see that somehow their opinions were given voice.

What you're going to be asked to do in a moment is to put off something that everybody would have told you matters—and no-one has told you why you're putting it off. You've been here for weeks where substantive legislation has not been before us, and you have been treated abominably by those you have chosen to be the leaders of your side of this House.

An honourable member interjecting—

Oh, no, the outrage is real, mate—because I believe that this parliament matters, and I think you'll find that more of your colleagues do as well.

It didn't happen under John Howard like this. It did not happen under Tony Abbott or Malcolm Turnbull. There would be occasions where the closure was moved but the key question used to be whether or not leave would be granted. Now it is whether or not you can get more than four words out. For those of you who have former members of your own party in your own area, ask them whether this is new—because it is and your role and your contribution is being belittled. Whether you stand up for yourselves or you just let the Prime Minister tell you that what you've been elected to is a bubble that doesn't matter, that's up to you. We're opposing this.

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