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

I move an amendment to the motion that has been moved by the minister:

That the following words be added:

"Mr Laming be discharged from the Employment, Education and Training committee."

The opposition accepts in moving this that it will be for the government whips to replace Mr Laming with whoever they choose. We are not seeking to shift from the practice that the whips recommend who becomes members of committees. But, can I tell you, we were told by Mr Laming himself, the member for Bowman, and by members of the government that he was resigning from all parliamentary positions. We were told that. And when we agreed to the motion today for what the order of business would be, committee memberships was one of the things we agreed to, presuming there would be that opportunity. We didn't raise it in question time, because the government had specifically nominated that they would deal with committee memberships. And then, when we get to committee memberships, guess what is the one that they don't want to change.

After everything we heard about the member for Bowman over the break, we get back here and nothing has changed. After everything we dealt with for weeks and weeks in this parliament, we get back here today and we discover nothing has changed! We find the committee memberships that were reported to be changed in April—in April!—will now be 'tidied up'. But in relation to someone who in March announced he was going, nothing's going to be done. Every single day since that announcement, that they did as part of their media management, he's been collecting the salary of chair of a committee—every single day. His claim wasn't, 'Oh, I'll resign later on.' The claim was he would resign immediately. That's what we were told, that he would resign immediately. And why were we told that? Why was it important that he would resign immediately? Because the member for Bowman is not fit to be a member of this parliament.

The member for Bowman is not fit to be a member of the House, and this government is relying on the tainted vote of the member for Bowman to retain any majority in this place. He has a long history of trolling and abusing his own constituents on Facebook. He publicly accused one woman of misappropriating charity funds, leading her, under pressure from him, to consider taking her own life. He targeted another woman, and her husband, with abuse for six years! Six years! This man has been targeting his constituents with abuse. When he was exposed on Nine, he apologised. He stood over there in the parliament and he apologised for the abuse. Then, within hours, he was sending messages saying he didn't even know what he was apologising for. If you behave that way, you are not fit to be a member of parliament. If you then apologise and don't even know why, you are not fit to be a member of parliament. If you hide behind bushes, jumping out, taking photos of constituents, you're not fit to be a member of parliament. If you offer a $100 reward to people to help identify who another member of parliament has been seen with in public, you are not fit to be a member of parliament.

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