Keith Wolahan (Menzies, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

If I were to stand in this place, express a fear about a future government banning Anzac Day and then present a bill that said, 'This will stop a future government doing that,' I would be laughed out of this place because I'm not taking it seriously.

If I were to say that I'm scared and worried about a future government banning Christmas and 'here's a bill to stop a future government banning Christmas,' I would be rightly laughed out of this place. If I were to say, 'I'm worried about a future government legislating to kill all firstborn males, and here's a bill to stop it,' I would quite rightly be laughed out of this place. And that's all this is—this is a joke by the Labor government on the Australian people. It's a joke that goes for six pages and is designed for one purpose: to be put on a tile on social media or a DL in your letterbox.

So, to Australians watching, if you get one of those DLs in the next few months or you see it pop up on an ad, know that this government is not treating you with the respect that you deserve, because the other thing you are getting your letterbox, other than a DL that has this rubbish on it, is your increased power bills, your increased insurance, your increased gas. And there is nothing coming from this government to address those problems. Instead, they sat around in a tactics meeting with empty pizza boxes thinking: 'What are we going to do? What's some issue we can manufacture to scare people—not to inspire people but to scare them?'

On that I would like to reference the Prime Minister's own words. The Prime Minister, in 2012, in a Press Club speech, said this about an Australian opposition leader:

In Australia we have serious challenges to solve and we need serious people to solve them.

Unfortunately, Tony Abbott is not the least bit interested in fixing anything.

He is only interested in two things; making Australians afraid of it and telling them who's to blame for it.

Those words were given at the Press Club in 2012 by the now Prime Minister. They were so inspiring they had featured in a Hollywood movie 17 years earlier, when Aaron Sorkin had Michael Douglas, acting as the American president, say this—and it might sound familiar:

We have serious problems to solve, and we need serious people to solve them. And whatever your particular problem, I promise you, Bob Rumson is not the least bit interested in solving it.

He is interested in two things and two things only: making you afraid of it and telling you who's to blame for it.

Well, the person who came up with this bill knows that we have serious problems to solve and that we need serious people to solve them, but that person is not one of them. He's interested in two things: making you afraid of it—that the NBN might be sold—and telling you who is to blame for it. That is the only purpose. So, when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese channelled Aaron Sorkin in the Press Club in 2012, he needed to heed his own advice. This is not a serious bill.

What we have been asked to do by this Labor government is to amend its own bill. Many speakers before me have referred to these particular quotes, but they are worth repeating. In a media press release by the then minister, Stephen Conroy, headed 'Government committed to the sale of NBN Co' he said:

Senator Conroy said the Gillard Government remained firmly committed to selling its stake in NBN Co after the network was fully built and operational, subject to market conditions and security considerations.

That was on 22 November 2010. Three days later, in a speech on the original National Broadband Network Companies Bill given by the member for Grayndler, the Prime Minister, then the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, he said:

It also sets out arrangements for the eventual sale of the Commonwealth's stake in the company once the NBN rollout is complete, including provisions for independent and parliamentary reviews prior to any privatisation, and for the parliament to have the final say on the sale.

So we had a Labor government with the then Minister for Infrastructure and Transport committing to the sale of the NBN, and we've been asked to take this government seriously on this joke of a bill which is designed for one purpose—to scare people and to be put on material on their screens and in their letterboxes.

This government has a choice and, instead of sitting around in tactics meetings about what goes on tiles and DLs, they should be turning their minds to solving real problems that Australians have. That's what a serious government would do. That's what a serious Prime Minister would do.

If you wanted to help Australians, you would cut back bloated government spending. We saw recently that government spending in the June quarter had blown out to 27.3 per cent of GDP. If we carve out the COVID period and we go back to the norm, pre-COVID, it was averaging 22.5 per cent. Think about that: 22.5 per cent of GDP was bumped up to 27.3 per cent by this government. That is totally unsustainable and is directly contributing to inflation in this country. So, instead of shoving a DL through a letterbox, they should be answering to the Australian public for why government spending is increasing inflation and increasing everything, including the interest rates on their mortgages. It's as if you want to scare and distract, instead of actually solve problems. Whenever we raise that issue the government says, 'What services are you going to cut?'—like there's no waste or bloat in the federal government. Of course there is. Of course there is, but this government is not the least bit interested in finding it or cutting it. It is throwing taxpayers' money away—and not just that of taxpayers now but of future taxpayers: our children and our grandchildren, who will be forced to wear this debt.

If a serious government wanted to help Australians, it would also do things like bring energy down and have energy security for this country and seriously consider support for a civil nuclear industry. A non-serious government—a joke of a government—would do other things. They wouldn't engage in that debate seriously. They'd produce memes of three-headed fish, and that's what we saw from this government. It's not a serious government. They're not the least bit interested in solving serious problems.

If you wanted to help Australians, you would make sure that our migration was proportionate to our capacity to deal with it—at all levels, federal and state. Instead, through the term of this government we have seen net overseas migration go to 1.5 million people. I'm from the great state of Victoria and we have that temple that is the MCG. It holds 100,000. Net overseas migration in this term of parliament has been 15 of those—15, in a country of 27 million people, with a housing crisis and a cost-of-living crisis. Now, the government may claim: 'We can't really pull the levers to fix that. It's not in our control.' They may have that debate, and we heard some of that in question time, but what we hear when we have debates about migration is members on the other side standing up and accusing us of engaging in dog whistling for even suggesting that there should be a debate. That's not the sign of a serious government; it's the sign of government that's more interested in the lines. It's more interested in DLs and more interested in tiles. It's not the least bit interested in solving problems.

If you wanted to really help Australians, you would make sure that our nation is secure. At the same time as we have seen public servant positions grow by 26,000, we have seen the full-time ADF drop by 5,000. As a proportion of our full-time ADF, 5,000 is one in 12. Imagine 12 ADF members sitting around a table. There's one missing on every table. Each of those people were supposed to bring the capability that keeps this nation secure. But if you wanted to scare and distract, you wouldn't fix that problem. You wouldn't talk about the monumental delays in ADF recruiting. Instead, you'd come up with a silly bill that's more of a talking line. That's all you would do.

If you wanted to actually help Australians, you would address the scourge of online gambling. Despite the Murphy report sitting on the desk of the minister and the Prime Minister, we keep going for month after month and week after week of this government doing nothing.

If you wanted to actually help Australians, you would back in free speech. You would back in free speech, because it is the fundamental right from which all others flow. Free speech isn't just about talking; it's about thinking. It isn't about narrative; it's about truth. It's through free speech that we get to have the contest of ideas. With open hearts and open minds, we actually get to see if our ideas hold water. If they don't, and if we actually have an open mind and an open heart, we will move further to the truth.

That's what you would do if you were serious and wanted to help people.

Instead, we have this government producing its mad bill, where it wants us to move closer to being a technocracy where particular people are carved out, including us in this place or academics or journalists. 'But, ordinary Australians, you're not allowed to have free speech—not you. You will be governed by your betters.' That's not the sign of a serious government that believes in things.

If you actually wanted to help Australians, you would address the cost of food, which has risen by 12 per cent; you would address the cost of housing, which has risen by 13 per cent; you would address the cost of rents, which have gone up 16 per cent; and you would look at insurance, at 17 per cent through this term. And the cost of gas, which people use to cook their food and which we need for our industry, is up 33 per cent.

But, instead, this non-serious, joke of a government comes in and waves around more spending on the symptoms and not the cause. That's all we get from this government—increasing the very thing that's fuelling inflation and at the same time saying, 'Don't worry about that. Here's a little bit of help. I'll throw some more of your money back at you and say I'm fixing it.' It'll increase your bills by $100 but then say, 'You're fine. Here's $10 more. Don't worry about it. It's all good.' A serious government would look at the causes of inflation, not the symptoms. A serious government would address bloated government spending, because we know that that is the singular cause of increasing inflation in this country, and the RBA has told us that.

If you wanted to actually help Australians, you would seriously look at productivity in this country. Flatlining productivity has led to six quarters of negative GDP growth per person. That's the only measure that matters. It's the only measure that matters. Instead, to avoid a technical recession, we've seen this government crank the levers they say they don't control to prop up net overseas migration to be able to say, 'How good are we? We've avoided a technical recession.' Well, avoiding a technical recession has nothing to do with how people feel—nothing to do with the real, lived experiences of Australians, who are begging for inflation to come down; who want this government to control its spending, because they're controlling theirs; and who want to make sure that they're not leaving their children a worse future than they inherited themselves. A serious government would address those problems. A joke of a government would introduce bills like this.

Very soon, Australians will go to the polls, and they will give their assessment of this government. They'll ask, 'In these really tough times, were they focused on the things that mattered to me and my family and my community, or were they more focused on themselves?' They'll have to ask, when they get that DL through the letterbox or they see that tile on Instagram or Facebook, 'Is this all you did?' I think, as many others have asked, they will ask themselves, 'Am I better off than I was three years ago?' The answer to that is an absolute no.

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