Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion immediately—That this House:

(1) notes that:

(a) before the election, the Prime Minister promised on at least 97 occasions that Australians would receive a $275 cut in their power bills; and

(b) since the election, the Prime Minister has abandoned this promise and refused on 27 occasions to stand by this promise when asked about it in this House; and

(2) therefore condemns the Prime Minister for cynically and deliberately misleading the Australian people.

As late as question time today, the Leader of the House, the Treasurer—the whole front bench—has refused to back in this weak Prime Minister. This Prime Minister went to an election on integrity, saying to the Australian people he would look them in the eye and that he could be relied upon. As it turned out, he completely deceived the Australian public. And it was not just on one occasion; this wasn't just a slip of the tongue. This wasn't a Prime Minister who was in full flight during the course of a press conference and misspoke or moved off his speaking points, as we saw this Prime Minister regularly do in the election campaign. He made that promise on 97 occasions.

Now, do you think that Australians were listening to what the Prime Minister said? I'll bet they were, because what he said was based on the research that the Labor Party had done during and up to the election in May. The Australian public wanted to hear from this Prime Minister, the then Leader of the Opposition, that they would get a cut to their electricity prices and to their gas prices if Labor was elected. So what did the machine men of the Labor Party do? They came up, Mr Speaker—

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