Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

'That the House do now adjourn.' There are no relevance rules in the adjournment debate, so we can talk about whatever we want. Let's talk about that for a moment. The House may as well adjourn. There has been no point to being here for the last four weeks—no reason whatsoever. I have been elected for the last three and a half years. This has been the most pathetic, ridiculous session of parliament that I've endured.

That is a big call. We were here that time when the government lost control of the parliament in the last term because half their members just went off to airport and flew home. They didn't have enough members left to run the place. Then there was that great week when they knifed good old Malcolm. What happened to Malcolm? We never found out—he just disappeared. Remember that time that they hated each other so much that they couldn't even be in here together? So they just shut the parliament down. Then there were the popcorn weeks leading up to that, when they were killing each other.

But at least they had a purpose then. At least they had some legislation to debate. There were things they wanted to do for the country. We could come here representing our electorates, representing our values in the parties that brought us here, and have a debate about what the right thing for the country was. There is none of that anymore. This week they introduced two pieces of legislation, and we had 4½ days in this, the national parliament, debating the appropriation bill that everyone agrees with because it means the government pays its bills. That is it. That was the main purpose of the last two weeks. There has been not one division on a second reading debate in the last four weeks, because the only legislation the government is serving up and debating, frankly, is the ordinary drivel of government, the stuff the public service feeds up through the machine and says 'It's about time we changed a few words in this act', and off we go.

This is a debating chamber. It's the heart of democracy. The government is terrified of debate. Every time the Leader of Opposition gets on his feet to have a debate with the Prime Minister they use their numbers to shut him down, because the Prime Minister is terrified of a head-to-head debate. Indeed, the most common vote that the government members have taken, the most common motion they move, is to gag the opposition in a debating chamber.

I think that matters. There are problems in the real world. The economy is floundering. It has been weak for years. The government has no plans and no purpose. They have no plan for the economy, no plan for jobs, no plan for wages, no plan for climate change. The government's led by a guy who is a salesman, not a leader. We saw that when the country was burning. At the very moment we needed leadership he ran away and made a Liberal Party ad. He hid in Canberra and made a Liberal Party ad, politicising the defence forces, and day after day in question time he is too gutless to admit it.

Then of course there is the $2 billion bushfire fund. He is running around making ads about his bushfire fund, and we learn in Senate estimates that there is no bushfire fund. It doesn't exist. There is no bushfire recovery authority. It doesn't exist—it is a guy sitting in the Prime Minister's department. But he can't spin his way out of reality on the economy. We have now heard him all week desperately trying to get behind the coronavirus to avoid the blame for what is going on in the economy, to hide the fact that the economy is weak and floundering on his watch. He tries to pretend that he hasn't actually been there for seven years. 'I have only been the Prime Minister for a year. We're getting it together. We will find a purpose.' He was the Treasurer for most of the government's seven years. He can't avoid responsibility.

The member for Fenner used a great Warren Buffet quote: he said, 'When the tide goes out, you discover who has been swimming naked'. The government is being exposed. Economic growth is tanking. The last quarter's growth was lower than the previous quarter's growth. We heard today that the Prime Minister can't commit that we're not heading for a recession, the first in 29 years. Wages growth is the lowest ever on record under this government. Their response is: 'Let's cut more penalty rates; that will help'. Consumption is anaemic. Underemployment is now at a record high. Nearly two million Australians cannot get work or cannot get enough work. Under this government business investment, the key to improving productivity and the only thing that will really improve living standards, has fallen by 20 per cent since the Liberals were elected, and it's continuing to get worse.

They should just swallow their pride and accept the policy that Labor took to the last election—I bet they might bury that in their little stimulus. They started saying the word 'stimulus' this week. It's a good thing that they've finally recognised how weak the economy is. They could have listened to the Reserve Bank six months ago when it said, 'We need the government to do more.' They should listen to the Reserve Bank, swallow their pride and adopt Labor's policy around business investment tax breaks. They could do something about Newstart. They could bring forward the tax cuts. And they could stop fighting amongst themselves. (Time expired)

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