Tony Zappia (Makin, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Perhaps Abraham Lincoln's most famous line was:

You can fool all the people some of the time, and some of the people all the time, but you cannot fool all the people all the time.

Perhaps the Prime Minister should heed Abraham Lincoln's advice, because his own credibility has taken a dive. Confidence in his government is rapidly eroding and trust in his government has all but vanished.

The Prime Minister leads a government characterised by dishonesty, rorts, spin and incompetence. It is a government that believes public funds—that is, taxpayers' hard-earned money—are there for the Liberal and Nationals parties to use as slush funds come election time, to use to win marginal seats. The list of rorts and abuses of office, and the incompetence of this government, grows each day and is there for all to see. And what has been the government's and the Prime Minister's response to all of this? To cut funding to the Auditor-General so that fewer audits can be carried out and less scrutiny can be applied to this government, and to prevaricate over the establishment of a national integrity commission that it has now had eight years to install. And why does it do this? Because it doesn't want independent and credible scrutiny. It doesn't want the spotlight shone on it. It doesn't want its own ministers, including the Prime Minister, to have to answer questions that each and every day they refuse to answer here in this parliament, and during Senate question times, or that they simply don't answer when people put in freedom-of-information requests; they hide behind the rules and the guidelines of that process. At times, as we know, they also hide behind the 'cabinet-in-confidence' line, which we see on a regular basis.

This is a government where the rorts speak for themselves. We had the Safer Communities Fund rorts, where 91 per cent of the $30 million for round 3 of the Safer Communities Fund ended up in government held, independent or marginal seats. We had the car parks rorts, where $660 million was allocated based on the top 20 marginal electorates list which was indeed shared with the Prime Minister's office. We had the sports rorts, a $100 million fund, where Minister Bridget McKenzie had to resign. We had the regional rorts, another $220 million, which incurred a scathing report from the Auditor-General. Ministers overturned departmental advice and 17 per cent of the projects were not even recommended, and ministers overturned departmental advice and gave $5 million to a meat processing business which donated to the coalition.

We then had the road rorts, where 83 per cent of the $3 billion in the Urban Congestion Fund went to coalition and marginal seats. We had the pool rorts, which other speakers have talked about, relating to female facilities and water safety, where two Liberal held seats received half of the $120 million promised. We then had the Leppington Triangle airport land deal, where the government paid $30 million for land valued at $3 million. I heard the minister's response in respect of this matter earlier on today. If the minister is right, then why was the land then in turn released back to the people who sold it to the government for less than $1 million, if it was worth the money he says it was?

It simply doesn't make sense and it doesn't stack up. Of course, we then had the Great Barrier Reef Foundation given $444 million, which I understand they didn't even ask for. I could then turn to the member for Hume, the minister for energy, and we could do a whole MPI on his own efforts in respect to all of this.

We then turn to the government's stacking of government boards, statutory authorities, judicial appointments and heads of departments with Liberal Party and National Party mates and supporters—all to ensure that their agenda is carried through and that there is no scrutiny of what they do. It is little wonder that public trust in government has never been lower. This is a government that treats people with contempt. This is a government with only one agenda, and that is to stay in office and to do whatever it takes to do that. I say to the Prime Minister: the Australian people are not fools—as Abraham Lincoln quite properly alluded to in his own comments—and their patience is fast running out.

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