Shayne Neumann (Blair, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That's right. There was a backlog of one million; that's a lot of backlog. If they'd appointed three or four people to get through the visa backlog that would have been a good thing, but they didn't do it at all.

The excuse of the member for Cook was that, somehow, he wanted to appoint himself for COVID reasons. It would have taken a couple of minutes to appoint a new minister! The other excuse I heard him say was that it was because he couldn't trust the member for Hinkler—I think that's who it was—with a decision he might make in terms of resources and the environment. Honestly, how much faith did the member for Cook have in his National Party colleagues that he couldn't trust him to do that? It's just amazing that in 2022, 2021 and 2020 he was doing all this stuff. Sometimes governments use all manner of excuses during emergencies to avoid democratic accountability and transparency, but this takes the level of hypocrisy, secrecy and covert operations to an astronomical level.

It was a sad day for Australian democracy when we had a censure motion in this chamber in relation to the conduct of the member for Cook, not because we had to do it but because he put himself in a position where it was so important to say to this place that representatives who are elected by their constituencies can have a say. It was important to say to the member for Cook, 'What you did was not on.' I couldn't believe it when those opposite were going up to him and kissing the ring—almost kissing the hand—after that particular vote, instead of saying: 'Look, you did the wrong thing. Own up and confess.' The fact that he didn't cooperate with the Bell inquiry, except through his lawyers—he had to lawyer up—is an indication there was a challenge. Power can be abused, and it was being abused with those appointments. And it should never have been abused. We need to know who's appointed to administer departments of state. It's not a hard thing; we get that. We're entitled to know who's in government and who's not in government. The public, who go to the ballot box, do the pre-poll and do the postal votes, are entitled to know as well. It's a simple process. I can't believe that we learnt all about this through the good efforts of a journalist—and I give credit to the journalist involved.

But we learnt about this because the Prime Minister decided to cooperate in the writing of a book. It's about the folly of a criminal who gets caught because they're bragging on the mobile phone. They get their mobile phone and start bragging about something. It's the stupidity of the person who's a criminal who gets caught that way. And he's decided to reveal all and get his story out. He told the journalist about it and so a book's been written about it. He thought that was the appropriate way to reveal information. When the information came out that way and was published in the media, he thought, 'Oh, I'm going to take umbrage at this.' I listened to his press conference and I listened to that speech that day, and he still doesn't get it, at all. There's no admission of responsibility; there's no bearing of that responsibility. I say this to the member for Cook: you need to bear fruit that befits repentance, to use a good biblical saying. You need to say, 'I made a mistake. I did the wrong thing and I need to improve'.

This legislation is important because of what the member for Cook did. It's sad we've got to do it, but it's a matter of necessity and I support it.

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