Vince Connelly (Stirling, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance today—the government's response to the challenges facing Australia. Let me begin, as some of those opposite have as well, by making the very clear observation that there are Australians out there doing it tough. This has been very difficult for businesses, for families, for community groups, and we all acknowledge that in this place. So where do we go from here? Well, things, we should acknowledge, could have been a lot worse, and I will stand here and defend absolutely the Morrison government's response through this coronavirus crisis. What I won't cop, as colleagues on this side of the chamber won't either, are accusations from those opposite that the Morrison government's response has been flawed.

Let me start where we should always start—with the notion of leadership. Through my own experience in the military then through business and volunteering and now in parliament, I have had an opportunity to see some pretty good leaders and some pretty bad leaders. I've seen formal theory and I've put theory into practice. I've made mistakes along the way and I've learned from them. But let me start with this notion of leadership. I'll give you one example. From the very start there was the formation of the national cabinet. Rather than our Prime Minister simply saying, 'I'll call the shots; me and my cabinet will tell you how it's going to be,' there was a consultative process established. This was the first time in Australia's history that we've seen a national cabinet formed. And I have tell you that all of the feedback I have received in my electorate has been incredibly positive. I've had people say to me: 'Vince, why don't we continue this? Why don't we replace COAG with this form of national cabinet?' Of course, that's what we've now seen.

I've talked about receiving positive feedback. Let me now quantify that. Yes, I've been stopped and advised, 'We think the government's doing a good job.' Let me firstly make the point that that doesn't go to our heads. The very first thing that Scott Morrison said to us—and my colleagues will remember this—in the party room at the start of this term was: 'We will govern humbly for all Australians, and part of how we will do that is through solid leadership.' So I wanted to test that a little bit. We had a tele-town-hall meeting. I dialled thousands of people in my electorate. The minister for small and family business, Michaelia Cash, joined me, and we answered questions. We said: 'We're not pretending to be perfect. We want to hear if something's working, and, if it's not, let us know.'

I can tell you that all ministers and the Treasurer and the PM have been responsive to those in my electorate whenever I've raised issues. So we said, 'Tell us what's going on.' We got some great questions, and in the middle of it we asked for a little bit of feedback. We posed the question to those who were on the line during this tele-town-hall meeting: 'Do you generally (1) agree or (2) disagree with the Morrison government's COVID-19 response?' People were able to anonymously push either 1 or 2 accordingly. Ninety-three per cent of the people who responded on that call pressed 1; they generally agreed with the Morrison government's COVID-19 response. So this is why I stand here and say: I'm not just running on my perception or on what I hear anecdotally; I've done a bit of analysis around this, and I encourage those on my team and those opposite to do the same. So I will stand here and defend the leadership structures which were set up.

That also branched into decisions that were taken, decisions like stopping travel from China and then from Italy and other regions. That absolutely got us onto a positive footing from the very start. These decisions were not easy, but they were absolutely necessary and they demonstrate that strong leadership. We then saw Australia lead calls for an inquiry: where did this pandemic come from? This is extremely important, and now we're seeing moves towards answering that question.

I want to finish not with the detail—though I could certainly provide a lot—but with the values and principles that underpin my party, the Liberal Party, and which our coalition partners in the Nationals are also passionate about. Three stand out for me: lower taxes, the central importance of families, and small government. Lower taxes—thank god we didn't come into this with the additional impost of $387 billion of taxes on the Australian people. We can all understand how crippling that would've been as a starting point. Family—this is why we've had a mature response to child care and a support package which will see $2 billion this quarter go to eligible families. Small government—well, small businesses are at the centre of this response, not government. We will fight for those values always. (Time expired)

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