Paul Fletcher (Bradfield, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Government Services and the Digital Economy) Share this | Hansard source

It is vital that Australia maintains strong working relationships with our key allies, and there is no more important ally than the United States, our most important security partner, a critical economic partner. Our security relationships go back for more than 100 years. Our troops have fought together since 1918. We have been bound together by the ANZUS treaty since shortly after World War II. More recently, we went into the AUKUS arrangements, under which Australia will receive access to some of the most sensitive nuclear technology that the United States possesses. We're forming new arrangements, such as the Quad—the United States, Japan, India and Australia.

The United States is a major source of inbound investment. It's a major export market for Australian businesses. So it is very important that the governments of these two nations work together closely and effectively. That is uncontestably in the interests of the Australian people. It is very important that there is mutual respect and trust between political leaders in both systems. What that means—I think it's an uncontentious proposition—is that there's a requirement on the Australian government of the day to be professional and to be disciplined in the way that it approaches our relationship with the United States, as there is in the way it approaches our relationship with other key allies around the world.

Let's be very clear on what our responsibilities are as political leaders in Australia. It's the job of the Australian government to deal with the government of the United States, the government that is chosen by the people of the United States. It is the right of the American people to choose their President. It is the obligation of the Australian government and of Australian political leaders to deal in a professional and respectful way with the government of the United States. Indeed, we saw that behaviour being modelled and demonstrated by the previous coalition government under the first Trump administration. We saw that administration apply tariffs to steel and aluminium imports from around the world, as is the perfect entitlement of the democratically elected government of the United States. But then Liberal Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull successfully had Australia exempted from those arrangements. That was an example of a coalition government working constructively, professionally engaging with the President and the administration in the United States.

You would have thought all of these are uncontentious propositions, so trite as to hardly be worth making. But, sadly, the evidence is clear that there are too many Labor politicians who do not accept or understand these statements, these principles, that I've just articulated. Instead, time after time, they fall prey to the temptation to engage in performative virtue-signalling directed at their Lefty echo chamber to try and get more likes on Twitter or X. There's example after example, I'm very sorry to say, of senior figures in the Albanese Labor government indulging themselves by doing just this and going for that short-term sugar hit of approbation and approval from within their Lefty echo chambers. But that is very much not in the interests of Australia and the Australian people. For example, the minister for climate, emissions reduction and energy published a book in February 2021 titled On Charlatans. It hasn't been widely read, but I suspect it has been widely remaindered. But it does contain a description of the man who has just been elected as the President of the United States. It contains a description of him as 'narcissistic', 'a liar' and 'the worst President in United States history'. This is a current senior Labor politician engaging in remarkably irresponsible conduct which is not in the interests of the Australian people, not in the interests of Australia and not in the interests of a prudent and mutually respectful relationship.

What about Wayne Swan—Swannie—the current Treasurer's mentor? Surely we could have expected him to be more responsible in his approach? I'm sorry to say not. In a podcast on the ABC's Radio National—of course, he was naturally tempted to go for that virtue signalling and approval from the leftie echo chamber—he had this to say:

The rise of Donald Trump is what happens when rampant wealth and income inequality, which causes immense despair across working classes across the world, leads to such disillusionment with the political system that it pushes it in a neo-fascist direction.

I don't think that could be regarded as a responsible or prudent thing to say or a thing which is in the interests of the Australian people, a thing which is in the national interest.

What is it that we've heard from other senior ministers in this government? The Minister for the Environment and Water had this to say in 2016 about then presidential candidate and just elected President Donald Trump:

He's broken so many conventions I think it's fair enough for us as Australians to say we are deeply concerned about the security concerns his candidacy raises.

Again, she's falling prey to the temptation to appeal to the leftie echo chamber, rather than thinking in a sober and responsible way, 'What is the thing that I should be saying, as a senior Australian politician, in our national interest?'

What about the Prime Minister's senior press secretary, formerly the Guardian journalist 'Murpharoo'—what did she have to say about President Trump? She said:

It was fascinating to be with Trump in the Oval Office … He had a simple objective: stonewall, redirect and destabilised the room.

Again, you could not say that the now source of senior advice to the Prime Minister was carefully calibrating her words in the interests of maintaining a mutually respectful relationship with the United States.

What is it that the Assistant Treasurer had to say? In one of his many missteps in November 2016, he said:

… weve seen a lot of people hoping like hell that theres a massive disconnect between what Donald Trump campaigned as and what hes going to govern as …

Again, it's a self-indulgent piece of commentary appealing to the leftie echo chamber.

You would hope, of course, that our Prime Minister, the man who holds this august office, would take a more responsible position. You would hope that. Unfortunately, at Splendour in the Grass, again falling prey to the temptation to appeal to the crowd—he was probably wanting a t-shirt—

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