Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

The office of the Prime Minister is the most important office in this country, yet the occupier who currently sits in the chair diminishes it and reduces the office of Prime Minister to political commentary and a partisan, childish, schoolyard political office. Australians saw the true character and the leadership style of this Prime Minister when the nation was literally on fire. He went on holidays and returned with that famous saying: he doesn't hold a hose. Then Victorians got another sense of it when we were in our darkest days, locked down, unable to see our families. What did this Prime Minister use the high office that he occupies to do? He wrote a press release saying we should be more like New South Wales—not talking about how he was going to support Victorian health authorities, not talking about how he was going to support Victorians during this global pandemic but talking about how New South Wales and the New South Wales Liberal government were his favourites.

We were confronted with a new crisis before the Prime Minister when literally thousands of Australian women marched outside this parliament, asking the Prime Minister to use his high office to meet the moment that they created—to meet the moment that Australian women turned up for, to say that enough is enough. If he really cared, if he really wanted to meet that moment, he wouldn't, day in and day out, go into the House of Representatives and refuse to answer questions about whether the office of the Prime Minister of this country backgrounded Brittany Higgins' partner when she came forward with a rape allegation, backgrounding to the media. That's how that office used the office of the Prime Minister. And, worse, yesterday the office of the Prime Minister was once again used by this Prime Minister as a deflection. He literally made up a sexual assault complaint that didn't exist in order to weaponise it, because he felt uncomfortable by a question from a journalist. This country needs leadership. This country needs a Prime Minister that respects the office of the Prime Minister, and the Prime Minister who currently sits in the chair in the office does not hold a hose in that office that we so desperately need leadership from. (Time expired)

See this speech in context