Clare O'Neil (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

We could have had a really important moment in this parliament this morning. We could have stood up from all the different political parties that we represent from all the areas of our beautiful country that we represented and made a really strong statement about what our democracy means to us. It is enormously disappointing to me that we have people like the member for Berowra, who I think has huge respect, usually, on this side of the chamber, give a speech like that, pretending that this doesn't matter. This is the thing that I cannot fathom about this entire debate about the conduct of the member for Cook: the willingness of those opposite me to continuously play this down when they know that this matters. We take an oath, as members of parliament, to come to this chamber to represent and protect our communities, and the member for Cook failed to do that not just in his capacity as a member of parliament but in his capacity as Prime Minister.

We are learning some things about our parliament this morning, and one of those is that the member for Cook still does not believe that he has done anything wrong. How is it possible that the member for Cook can still not do the right thing by this parliament? We saw 15 minutes of obfuscation and excuses—nonsensical excuses—that do not justify in any way the conduct that was undertaken. Why can't the member for Cook see what the Australian people need from him at this moment? They need an apology, some amount of reflection about his conduct and a willingness to take responsibility for what he did wrong. Those are normal human reactions, and that is what the nation demands of its national leaders at this time, and he has utterly failed to do it.

I don't know what to say to the modern Liberal Party. This morning they have foolishly indulged and enabled the member for Cook simply because he is of their breed, and that is wrong. The behaviour this morning from that party has been bizarre, craven and disappointing. This is a party that's meant to be about conventions, about protecting things that matter and about protecting our institutions and our democracy. What we are seeing is not only that this political party will not support this motion, which would've made a clear public statement about the meaning of democracy, but also that they lined up to shake the member for Cook's hand after he'd spoken. What sort of message does that send about how much they value this institution versus their political interests?

I should not have to explain to the parliament why this matters, but I'm going to talk a little bit about the implications for my portfolio of Home Affairs. The member for Cook gave us a long description about how stressful and difficult things were during COVID. He swore himself in as the Minister for Home Affairs in May 2021. If there has been a period of calm in the last three years it was May 2021, and yet he decided to swear himself in as Minister for Home Affairs, which, without question, could have placed our country at a serious national security risk. There is no question about that. My department runs national security issues in this country. In appointing himself as Minister for Home Affairs, the member for Cook also made himself the dual head of ASIO and the Australian Federal Police. He did not tell the public servants in my department that he had done that.

So what would have happened if we had had a significant terrorist attack during the period where we had two ministers for home affairs? Can the member for Cook not see that that would have created a national security crisis for our country? Two ministers would probably have had two different views about how to respond to a crisis. And we had this situation go on for a year. The member for Cook says that he never intended to exercise these powers. Well, why did he swear himself into the portfolio? In fact, he mentioned in his address that there were certain things about national security that only he as the Prime Minister could understand. Well, as the old saying goes, 'Power corrupts; and absolute power corrupts absolutely,' and we saw it this morning in these justifications.

There are lots of political issues that we deal with in this parliament, and people sometimes give serious speeches about things that are not serious. This is not one of those issues. I say again to those opposite: there are fundamental tenets of our democracy that have been broken here. We are the sixth-oldest democracy in the world. We are, I think, the best quality democracy in the world. We have compulsory voting. We were one of the first countries with women having the right to vote. We have an amazing system here, and that is a critical asset for us as we will be facing some very difficult challenges in the coming decades.

Yet the opposition party come in here this morning and degrade our democracy. They're willing to see it trampled on and debased by the member for Cook. Not only are they not willing to do anything to say that that's wrong; they lined up and shook his hand afterwards. We owe our constituents much better than that, and that is why I'm supporting the censure motion today.

See this speech in context