Andrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Hansard source

A year ago, the coalition lost nine seats in South Australia and lost government. Ten months ago, they lost 17 seats federally and lost government. Last weekend, they lost at least a dozen seats in New South Wales and lost government. The coalition now holds no mainland state or territory. The most senior Liberal governing leaders in Australia today are Brisbane Mayor Adrian Schrinner and Tasmanian Premier Jeremy Rockliff.

You'd think that the loss of 40 seats and three elections would provoke some soul-searching, but the main lesson that the coalition seems to be taking from this is that they're too woke and they need to move to the right. The fact is that the coalition hasn't woken up. The Australian people aren't buying what you're selling. This is no better epitomised than by the shadow Treasurer, a man who brought us the current energy crisis—a man who is best known for hiding energy price increases from the Australian people, for his Cayman Islands company, for the Jam Land scandal and for making things up about Clover Moore and Naomi Wolf. As he might have put it, 'Well done, Angus.' He thinks he's the second coming of the Messiah, but most Australians just think he's like Mr Burns from The Simpsonsjust with a slightly greater tendency to look straight down the barrel of the camera.

The once-great Liberal Party has lost its way. At its founding in 1944, Robert Menzies said:

We took the name "Liberal" because we were determined to be a progressive party, willing to make experiments, in no sense reactionary …

Menzies never once used the word 'conservative' to describe his party. Like Deakin before him and Holt, Gorton and Fraser after him, Menzies was a liberal, not a conservative, yet under Howard, Abbott, Morrison and the current Leader of the Opposition, the Liberal Party has become what Sir Robert Menzies wished against. The Liberal Party of Australia has become a party of reaction. It isn't the Liberal Party; it's a conservative party. It is the party of no.

It doesn't have to be this way. Oppositions don't have to oppose. Just look at the member for Grayndler, who, when he took on the job, said he wanted to be known as the Labor leader, not the opposition leader. Look at how he behaved and how we as a party behaved during the COVID pandemic—supporting the government on its health measures and supporting the government on its economic measures.

In less than a year, what has the coalition said no to? They've said no to energy price relief and a temporary gas price cap. They've said no to the Housing Australia Future Fund, which would build 20,000 social housing properties and 10,000 affordable homes, with homes earmarked for women and children fleeing domestic and family violence. The coalition has said no to the National Reconstruction Fund. The coalition has said no to free TAFE. The coalition has said no to increasing the minimum wage. The coalition has said no to the secure jobs, better pay bill, which puts gender equity at the heart of wage setting, expands access to flexibility for carers and prohibits sexual harassment in the Fair Work Act. The coalition has said no to cheaper electric vehicles. The coalition has said no to Rewiring the Nation.

The biggest sign that they have become the nattering nabobs of negativity is their break with business over climate policy. While the Australian Industry Group and the Business Council of Australia are celebrating the safeguard mechanism passing parliament, the coalition are in here voting against the safeguard mechanism—voting against a measure that is the largest single carbon abatement measure that the government is pursuing, voting against a measure that provides certainty to industry and voting against a measure designed by Tony Abbott and Greg Hunt. The coalition have become so much the party of 'no' that they are today saying no to their own measures.

There is a thing called the useless box, whose only job, when you switch it on, is to switch itself off again—

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