Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cyber Security) Share this | Hansard source

As we begin this final sitting block of 2021, it is clear that the clapped-out jalopy of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government has finally broken down. For eight long years, parts have been spraying off this government as it has careened from scandal to scandal, from failure to failure and from bungle to bungle. But today it all came apart, with coalition senators voting against their own government en masse, withholding their votes from government legislation en masse and issuing media releases condemning their own government. This isn't a government anymore; it's a pile of debris left on a junkyard floor.

In response, we see a Prime Minister in full market-testing mode, casting about for a new reason for his government to exist, a new marketing slogan. We saw the most extraordinary one yet last week. After being in power for eight long years, the Morrison government now says it's interested in cost-of-living pressures. After doing nothing about record low wage growth for eight long years, now they want to campaign on cost of living. I say 'campaign' because they're not actually proposing to do anything about it. As usual, this Prime Minister has his marketing strategy and has someone else to blame, but he has no actual plan for what he will do himself. The PM thinks he can just say it's all Labor's fault and—bang!—job done. That's what we're left with in the lead-up to the next federal election: a government that can't run on its record because its bungling of quarantine and the vaccination campaign cost a lost year for Australians. All it has left is lies.

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