Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Water) Share this | Hansard source

That was a bizarre contribution from the assistant minister, who seemed to spend more time talk about the member for Shortland than defending his own government's record. But how can he defend his own government's record? They have no record to defend. The Prime Minister spent a week campaigning for the LNP in the Queensland state election, including attending an LNP fundraiser with the Deputy Prime Minister and the Queensland opposition leader, but at the same time he claims he hasn't had time to establish a national integrity commission. The Prime Minister has got time to help his LNP and other mates in Queensland, but he doesn't have time to establish a national integrity commission. He has time to rack up a trillion dollars of debt, but no time to make sure his government leaves no one behind. He's had time to send out 50 press releases in four years since he personally announced, when he was the Treasurer, the establishment of the National Water Infrastructure Loans Facility, and that facility was abolished a couple of weeks ago without having written a single loan. They wrote 50 press releases; they wrote zero loans. This is a government that produces nothing for Australia but media releases, photo ops and announcements.

This government's message to Australians is: what's yours is ours. The Prime Minister's golden rule is: we look after our mates. This is the sort of Prime Minister that we're dealing with. Can I tell the House that in Queensland the Prime Minister has some frankly terrible mates. I would like to start with the LNP leader in Queensland, Deb Frecklington. She's one of the worst mates to have, and she is someone that the Prime Minister spent a lot of time with recently. By the way, the Queensland LNP have been resisting telling Queenslanders how they will pay for their promises until today, two days before the state election—they didn't want anyone to know how they were going to do that particular pea and thimble trick. Deb Frecklington was Campbell Newman's assistant minister when the LNP was last in government. This is a government—the Campbell Newman government, the LNP government—that sacked tens of thousands of Queensland workers. I'm talking of course—

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