Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

It's a pleasure to follow both the Leader of the Opposition and the former future leader of the Liberal Party on what is one of the silliest moments I can imagine of a dissent motion. If this was the test of whether or not you move dissent, we would have had a dissent motion every question time every day for the previous nine years. That's what we would have had.

What they're objecting to is the fact that the standing order simply says you have to be relevant. That's what they're actually objecting to. That's their problem that they have. If you have a look at the question, it asked, in the end part of it, about Qatar's application before the decision was made.

What made them outraged, what suddenly enlivened them, was when the minister started to refer to what the situation was before the application was made. It's exactly what she was referring to. She was referring to the situation the previous government had left in place. The question specifically invited an answer about what the circumstances were before the application had been made. If you don't want an answer about what the circumstances were before the application was made, then don't be so idiotic as to ask a question as to what the circumstances were before the application was made.

The reason they've done this is really simple: they have given up on a debate about cost of living, completely given up. They are embarrassed, completely embarrassed, about the economic accounts that have come out today. They are embarrassed that inflation has been going down, they are embarrassed that wages have been going up and they are embarrassed about having to sit on the opposition benches seeing a government deliver a surplus that they were never capable of.

Amidst that embarrassment, you fall back to all you've got left: 'Maybe we can manufacture a procedural argument.' And how desperate were they to get to a procedural argument? There was the desperation of the Leader of the Opposition saying: 'Can you give me a ruling? Can this please be a ruling? Please give me a ruling so we can talk about something other than policy. Please give us a reason to interrupt the minister when she is about to refer to what the situation was before that application.'

While it is certainly disorderly in this place for me to call anyone a hypocrite, there is extraordinary hypocrisy in the debate when you look at previous behaviour and what the circumstances were before that application was made. We have a minister for transport here who has acted in the national interest for this country. We have a minister here, in Minister King, who has made decisions, and then the outrage—

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