Tony Pasin (Barker, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Infrastructure and Transport) Share this | Hansard source

Reputations are often hard-won. But this newly minted government that has now spent six months in charge has earned a reputation for itself very quickly—the reputation that this is a government that says one thing before an election and one very different thing after the election. Picking up something the member for Canberra just said, it's a government that's pretty heavy on the yap—the talk. You would think that those opposite hadn't spent nine years in opposition preparing for their time in the sun, but they did. I don't know what they did while they were in opposition, but they certainly didn't develop a suite of policies in this space or in others.

Let's go back to the issue of saying one thing before an election and another thing after the election, because, as it relates to this bill, I sat in the House day after day after day in the middle of a pandemic, no less, when we were accused of doing nothing for the creative sector and when it was said that we had left artists, actors and musicians behind. Nothing could be further from the truth. We established emergency measures, including RISE, which supported 541 projects over 4,000 locations, with 195,000 direct jobs. You would think those that were so vociferous with their objection would have a plan ready to go on day one, but we just heard from the member for Canberra that they're actively engaging in consultation right now about what their policy should be. If you're an artist, just keep waiting, because what they've done is cancel the very successful RISE program, and in response they'd like you to turn up to a roundtable and tell them what they should be doing.

It sounds a lot like a commitment to a $275 reduction in your energy bill which, of course, was a commitment that was made time and time and time and time again before the election, but there was not a mention of it after. I think the 'Big Daddy' of all the examples of saying one thing before an election and doing something very different after the election was the commitment that the then opposition made via the now Treasurer to indicate that their platform would not involve pattern-bargaining of any shape or form going forward. And, of course, what do we have now? We have an industrial relations bill, a suite of measures, much of which is—

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