Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You have to hand it to the Liberal Party because it does not matter how many messages the Australian people send them; they just keep going back to the old Liberal Party methods. It doesn't matter how unsuccessful the Liberal and National parties are. It doesn't matter how many times the Australian people say, 'Do you know what? We actually don't want climate-change-denying dinosaurs, living in the past, constantly going out for scare campaigns and divisive politics.' It doesn't matter how many times the Australian people tell those opposite that that sort of Australia has no place in 2023. They keep going back to their old ugly playbook. And what have we got today? When the Liberal Party has run out of ideas, they go back to the bottom shelf. They go to the old dog-whistle 'look at all the migrants' playbook, complaining about all of the people coming into this country. It is the old John Howard playbook that we've seen time and time again.

Well, let's be clear. The reason that the member for Goldstein, the member for Higgins, the member for Mackellar, the member for North Sydney and, of course, the brand new member for Aston are no longer members of the Liberal Party is these gutter politics that those opposite are playing right now. Gutter politics. Those opposite come into this place and complain about housing, and yet they block the very thing that will get the federal government back into building affordable and social rental properties. Those opposite complain about the economy, but we are bringing workers back. I don't know if any of them spoke to a business after the pandemic, but the labour shortages in this country were extraordinary, so we brought skilled workers back to this country. We've also brought universities back to this country. What we've got is the old Liberal Party gutter politics, going after the other—anyone but the other; that's what they're pointing the finger at. What makes it even worse? Frankly, we can all sit back and watch the Liberal Party's demise—goodness; in Victoria, we've been watching it for a little while now! Just when you thought the Liberal Party couldn't get any crazier, they bring out something new.

Anyway, the Liberal Party might be a lost cause. But, if you're coming into this place to preach about caring about the welfare of those people in our society who are struggling with the costs of living and struggling with housing and you want to profess to be doing more for housing and housing affordability in this country, you should do whatever you can to get houses built right now. When the Greens abstained from the housing bill in this place, I thought, 'Do you know what? They're just going to try and negotiate; they're not going to stand in the way of housing.' But, in the other house, they have joined with the coalition, One Nation, Clive Palmer—and no-one else. The Independents, the teals in this place, Senators David Pocock and Jacqui Lambie, everyone else other than One Nation, Clive Palmer's bloke and the Liberal and National parties are sitting on the other side of the chamber saying, 'We actually want to get on with the job of building social housing.' And the Greens are sitting there with that unholy no-social-housing alliance. You'd think, if you were sitting there, looking around, going, 'I'm here with the Liberal Party, the National Party, One Nation and Clive Palmer,' you'd go, 'Maybe I should get on the other side of the chamber, with the sensible people who actually want to build social housing.'

I've heard arguments about tax cuts and all of this sort of stuff that is happening in the years to come, and those are legitimate debates that the country will undergo in the future. We do need to have honest conversations about tax policy. There's been really sensible tax policy implemented in the budget this year. But let's make the facts clear: right now, in this parliament, this week, we could get the construction of social and affordable housing started.

See this speech in context