David Hawker (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the Deputy Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Government’s failure to properly plan for Australia’s challenges due to its focus on its own internal political fixes rather than the nation’s future.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Since 2004 the Howard government has changed. It has stopped governing for Australian working families and it has started governing for itself. Prior to 2004 you could have said that there are some things this government could have been proud of—its resolute response in East Timor in helping to create peace and its brave reaction to the Port Arthur gun massacre and the introduction of gun controls. They were things that this government did in the nation’s interest.

But, since 2004, the government has stopped governing in the interests of the nation; it has turned inwards. Now, of course, we know the days of government ministers are spent plotting and planning against each other. They spend their days eyeing each other’s jobs rather than worrying about fairness at work for Australian working families. They spend their days eating canapes at Liberal Party fundraisers at Kirribilli rather than worrying about the cost pressures on Australian working families. They spend their nights making secret deals in hotel rooms rather than working on the policies for the future of this nation.

As well as turning inwards and cannibalising itself, the government has been swept away with its own ideological obsession—radical labour market reform. This, of course, has delivered the extreme Work Choices laws of this government and ensured that those laws have hurt Australian working families. It is undeniable that those laws have hurt Australian working families. People have had basic pay and conditions stripped away from them, with overtime and penalty rates gone. A new study released today by the University of Sydney shows, for workers in areas like retail and hospitality, these laws have brought up to a 30 per cent reduction in income. There is an ideological obsession possessing this government as it moves towards extreme laws.

Today I want to track the inward turning of this government—its increasing and unhealthy obsession with itself rather than with the interests of Australian working families. Increasingly, this government has become like a soap opera. I am a bit of a fan of soap operas—I am a very regular watcher of The Bill. You become very familiar with the characters and you follow the plot lines, but, as much as I love The Bill, like most devotees of soap operas I would have to say: if you watch long enough, the same old plot lines come around again, don’t they? If you watch long enough you see them all again. So it is with the Howard government: the plot line now just repeats and repeats—disunity, instability and leadership crisis followed by patch-up deal, and then the cycle starts again.

If we count out what has happened in the life of this government since 2004, let us see how many times that plot line has repeated. We had ‘Walletgate’—the leadership crisis sparked by a more than decade old note in Mr McLachlan’s wallet. Walletgate came to the attention of the Australian people when journalist Glenn Milne wrote about a secret meeting that took place in 1994, where Howard undertook to serve only two terms as Prime Minister. The note said it was an ‘undertaking’. It said that Mr Howard had used words to the effect: ‘I can’t guarantee this to you, Peter, but my intention is not to hang around forever. If I win I will serve two terms and then hand over to you.’ Do we remember Walletgate? And don’t those words sound very familiar in the context of the patch-up deal we saw on the 7.30 Report last night: ‘It is going to be all right, Peter; I am going to retire, I am going to hand over to you.’

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Lalor will refer to members by their seat or their portfolio.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We know that Walletgate sparked instability and a leadership crisis, and then there was the patch-up job. But Walletgate was followed by more. It was followed by Biographygate. When the Prime Minister’s most recent biography came out, there it was on display for all to see—what the Treasurer actually thinks about the Prime Minister’s ability to govern finances, about his ability to add up money and work hard at government finances and about the Prime Minister’s tawdry track record as Treasurer of this nation, delivering 22 per cent interest rates.

If Biographygate and Walletgate were not bad enough, there has been more. There has been Waters Edgegate—the scandal that beset the government very recently when a conversation between the Treasurer and a number of journalists was revealed for all to see. Let us remember that at the Waters Edge restaurant the Treasurer said that, in relation to this parliamentary term, he had set a mid-term deadline for the Prime Minister to hand over the leadership and that he was prepared to go to the backbench and carp at the Prime Minister’s leadership from the backbench and destroy it until he won the leadership. And he had said that the Prime Minister could not win but he could.

When these things were revealed for all to see in the newspapers and on television screens, the Treasurer did not come to the dispatch box and deny that he had said these things; he engaged in an arcane debate about whether these matters were on or off the record. He was not able to say that they were not said; he just had to try to hide behind a fudge as to whether they were on or off the record. How absurd is this that he could plot and plan to destroy and tear down the Prime Minister and when confronted with the allegations publicly just say, ‘I thought that was off the record.’ That was the defence.

Then of course we see patched together a new leadership round at the end of the week that was. This is the granddaddy of them all when it comes to leadership instability in the Howard government, and perhaps it is very relevant that it all happened in the Quay Grand Hotel inner suite. What we know about this round of leadership instability is its difference from earlier rounds. Earlier rounds were caused by a restless Treasurer getting out there and saying, ‘Look at me; pick me.’ He was a restless Treasurer who would start it but never have the gumption to finish it. This time, this leadership instability, this round, has been caused differently. It has been caused because a majority of the cabinet walked away from the Prime Minister. Let us look at how the meeting in the Quay Grand Hotel suite came about, and its implications for Australian politics.

On 7 September—last Friday—there were statements in the newspapers to the following effect. This from a government backbencher: ‘It’s getting to the point where it would be better if he’—the Prime Minister—’stepped aside.’ This from a minister: ‘The public thinks that we have been here too long and that John Howard is too old.’ A Liberal source: ‘No-one believes in the party that he’—the Prime Minister—’can turn it around.’ Of course, when these things happened and they were in the newspapers, the Treasurer was silent.

Then we know that last Friday the Minister for Foreign Affairs advised Mr Howard, the Prime Minister, of the outcome of a meeting he had held in Sydney the night before to canvass the views of senior ministers. He met with the Minister for Immigration and Multicultural and Indigenous Affairs, the Minister for the Environment and Heritage, the Minister for Defence, the Minister for Education, Science and Training, the Minister for Industry, Tourism and Resources and the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations—the list went on. They were the most senior people in the government and he met them in a hotel suite trying to cast around and work out what to say back to the Prime Minister about his future. The message went back that the majority wanted him gone. That message was received by the Prime Minister last Friday following the meeting in the hotel suite on the Thursday.

And then by Saturday in the newspapers we were reading things like these. There is the statement by an unnamed minister who said in respect of a colleague’s observation that the Prime Minister was, like Hitler in 1945, in a state of delusion, trying to deny the Russians were on the outskirts of Berlin, ‘On the outskirts? They are already at the Reichstag!’ And then another unnamed minister said that the view was crystallising inside the party that he has to go—the Prime Minister has to go. As this instability is in the newspapers, the Treasurer is silent.

It goes on. We know that on 9 September a senior minister said—because it was recorded in the Sydney Morning Herald the next day—that from a personal standpoint it would be better for the Prime Minister to leave now in a dignified fashion to spare himself a defeat. But he said that from the party’s perspective maybe the Prime Minister should stay because the government would only do worse under Costello. Then of course the Treasurer remained silent.

Then on Monday we had the Prime Minister do an interview saying that he expected to lead the party to the next election. We had the Minister for Health and Ageing at the table today and then appearing on Lateline trying desperately to shore up the leadership of the Prime Minister—one of the last remaining loyalists as the majority walk away from the Prime Minister. We know that on 10 September the Treasurer, through a source close to him, let it be known that he was willing to accept the leadership should the Prime Minister resign, but he had no intention of forcing the issue. We know that Mr Howard was letting it be known that he thought that he was the only person who could win. We know that one of the Prime Minister’s supporters said that the problem for Mr Costello was that he and his supporters did not have the guts to grab the leadership now. We know that supporters of the Treasurer were there saying that it was only the Treasurer who could take the party forward. We know there was a marginal seat MP who said: ‘If he did it and handed over to the Treasurer it could work but he has to do it now. I don’t think he will; we’ll all go down with him.’ As these things are in Australian newspapers for everybody to read, the Treasurer remains silent.

This government is asking you to believe that, after the crisis of Tuesday, when it was revealed through Sky News that the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources have been saying to Howard that he has lost the support of the key others in the government, after a party room meeting on the Wednesday, it is now an episode of happy families—that they are all back together, that they are all members of the team, that all of these statements did not happen and that all of this disunity did not occur. Really! Watching this government as it turns inwards and cannibalises its own, we know that the following things remain true today: no matter what episode of happy families in the ongoing soap opera of this government it is trying to have us believe, the majority of the cabinet do not support the Prime Minister continuing. That is true. The Minister for the Environment and Water Resources wants the leadership of the Liberal Party and he is biding his time in the hope that he can get it. That is true.

Last night the Prime Minister went on the 7.30 Reportnot with a grand plan about the future of his party and certainly not with a grand plan about the future of the nation, but with a cobbled together line about the Treasurer, to try and get him through the media cycle. And what does this cobbled together line about retirement mean? It means that, if the Prime Minister is re-elected, he will retire during the next period of the parliament. But it does not mean that the Treasurer will be the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister made that absolutely clear at the dispatch box today. He has given the Treasurer his usual sword of commitment, which is no commitment at all. So it could be anybody. It could be the Minister for Health and Ageing. Stranger things have happened—not much stranger. So the Prime Minister is saying to the Australian people, ‘I’m going if I am re-elected. It suits me to pretend that it is going to be the Treasurer, but really it could be anyone.’ That is where we have got to.

We know from today’s newspapers that it is not really over because there are key members of this government who are waiting for the next poll results and they are letting it be known loud and clear that, if the poll is not good, it is all back on. This is not an episode of happy families; this is moving from being a soap opera to a horror movie. And the problem for the Prime Minister and this government is that it is ultimately not them who pay the price of this instability; it is Australian families. They cease to govern, they cease to deliver, they cease to develop plans for the future—and it is Australian working families who pay that price.

There was not a minister today who answered a question who had half a clue or half an idea about the future of this nation. They have their scare campaign and their horror show, pretending to be happy families—and that is all they have left. Now, of course, we will hear the usual negative tirade from the Minister for Health and Ageing, but we will not hear a future plan for this nation because he does not have one, the Prime Minister does not have one and this government does not have one. (Time expired)

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The tragedy of this opposition is that all they think about is politics. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has spent her whole day preparing the typescript from which she has just read. It was so poor that many of her own colleagues were talking amongst themselves or reading papers.

Simon Crean (Hotham, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade and Regional Development) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Where are yours?

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My colleagues have a country to run.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should try doing it.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is what we are constantly doing. We are running the country while members opposite are striking poses—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! There may be some members who want to join the list of members that have already been thrown out.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do not deny for a second that there were a few tensions inside the government last week. There are tensions inside the opposition all the time. There are tensions inside political parties all the time. Political parties bring together a whole lot of tough, ambitious people with strong ideas for the future of their country. It would be amazing if, from time to time, there were not some tensions inside political parties, including this government. This government has always demonstrated that it can deal with them. Whatever tensions there might be inside this government, they have never stopped us from delivering extremely good and effective government for the people of Australia.

This MPI alleged ‘the government’s failure to properly plan for Australia’s challenges’. This government does not just plan for challenges; we actually meet them. There have been many challenges that this country has faced over the last 11 years. We have met them all and, through that process, real wages have grown by 20 per cent, real net wealth per head of Australians has doubled and there are two million more jobs. The reason that we have had these good results is that this government is always fixing problems—not in accordance with some ideological grand plan, but in accordance with decent values that resonate with the traditional values of the Australian people. We are a pragmatic problem-solving government, and because we have solved the problems of the day, we have built a great future for the Australian people. Let me say this: you cannot meet any challenges at all without a strong economy. That is why this government is best placed to meet the challenges of the future. You can rely upon this government to consistently deliver the strong economy on which everything else ultimately depends.

Members opposite can talk all they like about their plan for four-year-olds’ preschool or their plan to take over 750 public hospitals in one fell swoop. They can talk all they like about these things but, if you do not have the economic base, you cannot afford to do them. The first thing that members opposite would do, if they ever got to be the government of this country, would be to devastate our economy by sending the union bosses through the businesses of this country on day one of a Labor government coming to office.

Last week and last weekend, at a time when this government, according to the member for Lalor, was consumed, fixated and obsessed with its own alleged internal problems, at a time when this government was supposedly paralysed by self-doubt and fear, we were actually conducting the most successful and most important international meeting ever to take place in this country—a meeting of international historic significance. Quite apart from the fact that the Prime Minister personally negotiated, for the first time ever, a commitment from America, Russia and China to be part of an international scheme to limit and then reduce global emissions, he was also finalising a $45 billion gas deal with China, which means continued strength for the resources sector and, ultimately, continued prosperity for the Australian people. That deal would not survive any regime which increased industrial disputation and immediately made the workers in that superefficient energy sector subject to the inefficiencies and rigidities of the old award system. That $45 billion deal is hostage to the industrial relations policy of the alternative government of this country.

Members opposite suggest that economic management somehow does not matter anymore, that the economy is on autopilot and that it all happens by some process of automaticity. The instant they try to implement their industrial policy, the whole prosperity of this country, which they seem to take for granted, would be put at risk. As well as the $45 billion gas deal with China there was the $1 billion uranium deal with Russia, and members opposite seem to think that these things happen by accident. I tell you what: they do not happen by opposing these sorts of deals, and one of the many oddities about the position adopted by members opposite on this particular issue is that they support selling uranium to Russia but not, for some reason, to India, notwithstanding the fact that India has been a strong ally of good causes in recent times.

The problem with members opposite is that they talk about policies and talk about plans but they think that a headline is a substitute for serious work on making a difference for the future of this country. Let us dwell for a moment on a so-called policy which founded two questions to the Prime Minister today, and that is Labor’s $2 billion power grab for public hospitals. Public hospitals are not something with which to trifle. This is not a trivial issue. This is not something that can be dreamt up in an afternoon and dealt with by press release, and yet members opposite claim to have a plan for taking over not one, not two but 750 public hospitals in this country based on an unbelievably shallow 27-page document put out a couple of weeks ago. To deal with 750 public hospitals, their property, their staff, their programs and their patients in 27 pages is not just bizarre; it verges on fraud. It is intellectual and political fraud that members opposite are trying to perpetrate on the people of Australia.

We saw a clear tactic in question time today from members opposite standing up and claiming to have some gee whiz, you-beaut, brand-spanking-new policy on all sorts of issues and then asking the government, ‘What’s yours?’ Just because members opposite practise ‘me too’ on important policy issues is no reason for this government to practice ‘me too’, because our policies are serious. They are detailed, they are sustainable and they are not dreamt up on a long flight or on the back of an envelope on a short flight between Sydney and Canberra. On very substantial issues such as the intervention in the Northern Territory, which is a once in a generation chance to make a difference for the Indigenous people of Australia, and the $10 billion water initiative, which is a once in a generation chance to really do something about Australia’s most important natural resource, this government has done the hard work. What do members opposite say? They just say, ‘Me too.’ We had the finest and most acclaimed budget in Australia’s recent history, and what did members opposite say? ‘The government’s budget was actually our budget.’

What a bunch of political phoneys. What a bunch of deluded, would-be political impersonators. This idea that members opposite, riddled as they are with union officials and wedded as they are to old-fashioned notions of government intervention and state control, can somehow reproduce the policies of the Howard government and be trusted to resist the excesses of political correctness, which they all slavishly subscribe to, is absolute and utter nonsense. They talk today about political fixes—really and truly, the past masters of Tammany Hall, members opposite, talking to us about political fixes! As the Prime Minister said in this parliament today: what about the fix between Hawke and Keating at Kirribilli House, the lie on which the 1990 election campaign was based? What about the fix between Beattie and Bligh, the lie on which the last Queensland election campaign was based? What about the fix between Bracks and Brumby, the lie on which the last Victorian election campaign was based? These people have no shame.

What you have seen over the last 24 hours from this government is exemplary candour and honesty. We do not talk about these things after elections, when it is too late; we talk about these things before elections, when the Australian people can make their judgement, knowing what they will get if they vote for this government. That is the basic difference between members on this side of the House and members on the other side of the House: if you vote for this government, you know what you get; you do not know, listening to members opposite, whether you are going to get an economic conservative, an old-fashioned Christian socialist, the ex-executive officer of the Socialist Forum or a vehicle for the transition of communists into the Australian Labor Party. The fact of the matter is that these people do not know what they stand for. They tell you, at the moment, that they stand for many of the policies of the Howard government—policies that they could never deliver if they tried but that we all know they just do not believe in and would never even try to deliver were they in government.

Talking about fixes, just what is the fix between the member for Griffith and the member for Lalor? What deals did they do? What policy arrangements were entered into between them? We know, because the former member for Werriwa told us, that the relationship between them is absolutely poisonous. We know that their huge clash of ego and titanic ambition has previously made them bitter enemies. We know that the member for Griffith would never have become the leader of the Labor Party without the reluctant support of the member for Lalor. What was the price of that deal? Members opposite come in here talking about fixes. They should be honest with us. Talking about fixes, how did they get Kevin Harkins to withdraw as candidate for Franklin? What is the fix for the member for Brand, for him to go quietly? He is now telling everyone that he is going to be the ambassador to Washington. Please confirm that.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Tony, that is not true.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, it has been reported and, if the reports are false, someone should stand up in this House and say so. What was the fix between the member for Cowan and the member for Griffith, when the member for Cowan could have shot the member for Griffith about the fibs he told in respect of his dealings with Brian Burke? Thank God for Alan Ramsey, I think, because at least sometimes he is starting to probe behind the smiling facade of the fakes and the phoneys who sit opposite in this parliament right now.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This is a government that is out of touch, out of ideas and out of time. This is a government that is at war with itself. The Minister for Health and Ageing made an extraordinary contribution to this debate. He stated that the government had shown ‘exemplary candour and honesty’ when it comes to dealing with the leadership chaos that has engulfed the government. This is a government that is no longer governing the country, because it cannot govern itself.

On Monday night, just two days ago, the health minister said this: ‘Dumping Howard would be like jumping out of the frying pan into the fire.’ That was the health minister’s position just two days ago, and yet this morning there has been a conversion on the road to Damascus. The health minister said, about the Treasurer assuming the leadership of the Liberal Party: ‘What you’ll get in the future is the same kind of values and the same kind of policies that you’ve had in the past.’ Well, they cannot have it both ways. On the one hand they are trying to say, somehow, that this is about renewal down the track. What we know is that this is a grubby deal to get them through this week’s parliament. We know that this feud has been going for 11 years. We know this because members of the government have told us.

Remember ‘walletgate’—Ian McLachlan’s meeting record of the meeting on 5 December 1994, in which he said:

Meeting. Monday, December 1994. Undertaking given by JH at a meeting late PM in PC’s room that if AD resigned and Howard became PM then 1½ terms would be enough and he would hand over to PC. I McL.

That was the document that he carried in his wallet, year after year. Eventually, last year, due to the treachery of the Prime Minister in reneging on that clear commitment to the Treasurer, he made it public. Did the Treasurer deny it? No, he did not; he confirmed it. Indeed, he said the following at a doorstop on 11 July last year:

My parents always told me, if you have done nothing wrong you have got nothing to fear by telling the truth, and I told the truth. Now the public was entitled to know it and I have told the truth.

It is important that the truth is told not just about the past but also about the future. Today, I asked the Prime Minister twice: was there an agreement as part of the political fix to get through the caucus meeting yesterday morning that the Prime Minister would go onto TV and publicly say the ‘r’ word—publicly state that he would resign during the next term? And the Prime Minister fudged it, just as the Prime Minister fudged whether there was a deal to actually commit his support to the Prime Minister after that occurs, if the government is re-elected.

We have a Prime Minister who is standing for an election and saying he will talk about the future, when he has no vision and does not intend to be around in the future. And we do not actually know who will be the Prime Minister of Australia on 1 January 2010 if this government is re-elected. We do not know because it is a government at war with itself. We know that the Prime Minister wants a gold watch election. He wants a lap of honour, not for what he can do for the country but so that he can block the person who he has hated so vehemently for 11 long years, as he has stood there and frustrated him. The Treasurer today actually had the hide to talk about ticker. It is absolutely extraordinary. He had an opportunity this week. All he had to do was hold a press conference and say, ‘I’m running on Wednesday.’ The prize was there. But he failed to have the bottle to step up to the mark, as he has every single time.

This is a government in trouble. It is in trouble because it has no vision for the future. With the Prime Minister’s rhetoric, you would think he would have come in here today prepared with the vision. We gave him the opportunity. We asked him what his program was for early childhood education, in response to Kevin Rudd’s education revolution. He spoke for 10 minutes and said nothing about the future. We asked him about health and hospitals. Again, he said nothing about the future. And we asked him about the great challenge of climate change. His only plan is to have a $23 million advertising campaign to be launched this weekend—the taxpayer funded advertising campaign they stood at the dispatch box and said did not exist.

The most extraordinary statement of the health minister’s was when he said that none of his colleagues were here to back him up because they have a country to run. The problem is that they are no longer running the country. They are no longer concerned about the long-term policy interests and challenges for the nation; it is all about short-term political fixes. It is no longer about the future of Australia; it is about the immediate concerns of themselves. It is no longer about leadership; it is about weakness. It is no longer about a clear direction for the nation, because they simply do not have one. After 11 years, no-one knows what they stand for. They do not have an agenda for post the next election, because they have given up on the national interest. It is all about the party interest.

We have had this extraordinary situation whereby the Prime Minister has said to the Minister for Foreign Affairs, ‘Go away and sound out what my colleagues are thinking in the cabinet.’ So the foreign minister convened a meeting during APEC. When they were supposed to be concerned about this most important meeting held in Australia, what were they doing? They were talking about themselves, having a meeting in the foreign minister’s room with the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, the Minister for the Environment and Water Resources, the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, the Minister for Justice and Customs, the Minister for Defence and the Minister for Education, Science and Training, amongst others. What did they decide? They decided they wanted the Prime Minister to go. They decided that time was up. So they went and gave the Prime Minister the message, and the Prime Minister said: ‘Only joking. I’ve consulted with my family. They want me to stay. Forget about what you want or what the country wants.’ We gave the Prime Minister an opportunity: if you forget about what your own cabinet and your own caucus colleagues who do not want you there think, how about giving the Australian public a right to decide? At this time three years ago we were in the middle of an election campaign.

Over there they are so distracted from the future. There is no issue more important than climate change and water. We saw an extraordinary performance from the environment minister yesterday. This is a bloke who has been telling people in Sydney that he would be the Prime Minister by the end of the week. That is what has been going on: an attempt to come through the middle of two people, the Prime Minister and the Treasurer, who cannot stand each other. He had three attempts and could not get it right, and today he could not come to the dispatch box to say that he would not be a candidate. He did not have the ticker or the judgement to come to the dispatch box and say that he would not be a candidate. This next election will be a clear decision between a united Labor Party with a vision for the future under the leadership of Kevin Rudd and a disunited Howard Liberal-National Party coalition government at war with each other, with no vision for the future and with no idea, even, of who will be leading them during the term if they are elected. (Time expired)

Steven Ciobo (Moncrieff, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I listened to those contributions by the member for Grayndler and, prior to him, the member for Lalor—it would have been a lot better had the member for Grayndler stuck to the written script that he had in front of him. One thing that becomes increasingly clear with the Labor opposition is that you very much have the B team. It is a little bit like a show off Broadway: you have the one star attraction. The one star attraction that the Labor Party has is the member for Griffith, the Leader of the Opposition. But, like a show off Broadway, that one star is not enough to prop up the balance of the cast. We see evidence here today of the absolute mediocrity of the balance of the Labor Party cast when it comes to this show.

We have heard over the last little while this theme that the Labor Party are picking up. You can sense the excitement of the Labor Party: they are ahead in the polls and they know it, and the Labor Party are absolutely excited at the prospect of taking the reins of government. We on this side of the chamber intend to fight the entire way to polling day. Nonetheless, we know that the Leader of the Opposition is roaming around Australia telling people that he will be Prime Minister after the election. We know that Labor Party members believe they will be in government after the election, and they are all crowing about it.

What we are picking up on is this theme from the Australian Labor Party that it is time for a change. It is not that their policies are superior, it is not that the Labor Party offers a better alternative vision for the future of our country; the key theme that comes from the Australian Labor Party is that it is time for a change. I am reminded of one of the Prime Minister’s favourite artists, Bob Dylan. I know that the Prime Minister has previously said that he does not perhaps share Bob Dylan’s view of politics but he does enjoy his music and he is one of his favourite artists. Bob Dylan, of course, is renowned for his song The Times They Are A-Changin’.

Like the off-Broadway production that is the Australian Labor Party, it was interesting recently to note that Bob Dylan had a musical. The name of that musical was The Times They Are A-Changin’. It was an off-Broadway musical but they hoped that, with that one star attraction of Bob Dylan, they would be able to get the crowd numbers in. Unfortunately, that musical closed after only 28 performances, and the investors lost $10 million. That is what we have got with the Australian Labor Party: the one star up the front trying to urge the people to roll up, but the rest of the team lets the side down. The consequence for the Australian people, as with the Dylan musical which was a failure after only a month, won’t be that they lose $10 million should the Australian Labor Party be elected but that they will lose billions and billions of dollars should the Australian Labor Party be elected.

Although they will stand up and propose matters like the one we are debating, and they will run the notion that this is a government that is more introspective than it is concerned with the future of Australia, the fact is that that rhetoric does not match the facts. What is very clear is that this government has been exceptionally up-front. This Prime Minister has been exceptionally up-front. The Labor Party will try to portray it as something to the contrary; the member for Grayndler can say that the Treasurer and the Prime Minister have been at each other’s throats for 11 years and how bad this is for Australia, but the facts do not support it. The evidence makes a mockery of that very contention, because what is very clear is that the Prime Minister and the Treasurer work together as one of the most effective teams that this country has ever seen.

The consequence of that leadership provided by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer has been to pay off $96 billion of Labor debt, to bring our unemployment rate down to 32-year record lows and to provide vision and leadership for this country in terms of the environment, workplace relations, economic growth and all the key indicators on education and health—a leadership that this country was starved of when the Labor Party was in power. So the mockery that can be made of the member for Grayndler is very clear.

The member for Lalor, a former lawyer, comes into the chamber and makes comments—and we heard some of the remarks made by the member for Lalor when she tried to phrase things in a particular way. It reminded me that it is an old barrister’s trick to pose the question: ‘When did you stop bashing your wife?’ I could not help thinking that we saw a little bit of that from the member for Lalor, because the member for Lalor stood up and asked: ‘While all these discussions were going on, where was the Treasurer?’ ‘Where were the Treasurer’s comments?’ By the same token, the people of Australia know that had the Treasurer actually said anything, rather than focusing on the task at hand of running the country—as indeed he was; as, too, was the Prime Minister—the Labor Party would have been saying, ‘Instead of doing his job, the Treasurer was focused on the internal politics.’ Damned if they do, damned if they don’t.

I say to the member for Lalor: you need to be a little cleverer than that, because we are well aware of the way that the Labor Party tries to manipulate, mould, distort and twist the truth, and we can see straight through it. And the Australian people can see straight through it. More importantly, I have every confidence that the Australian people can see straight through the Labor Party. Sure, there is the attraction of the Leader of the Opposition at the moment, but the fact remains that the men and women who make up that front bench, the men and women who make up a possible future ministry should the Labor Party be elected, are nothing but a bunch of trade union hacks who are making policy on the run on the basis of what is good for the trade union movement. That is the reality, and it is not consistent at all with the allegations that the Labor Party tries to make.

Let us put to proof what the Labor Party have been saying. They say this is a government that is so internally focused that it has lost sight of the big picture. They say that this is a government that over the last week has been so introspective that it has lost sight of the big picture. What is the reality? This government just hosted APEC. Our Prime Minister just announced a new declaration in Sydney on climate change, which the member for Grayndler himself admitted is the most important issue. This government has got unemployment down to a 32-year low. This government is running the miracle economy of the world, according to the Economist magazine. This government has paid off $96 billion of Labor Party debt. That does not sound like a government that is in crisis. That does not sound like a government that has lost sight of the future. This is a government that has put over $2 billion into the Higher Education Endowment Fund to make sure there is record revenue flowing to Australia’s universities in the future. This government has put $2 billion into a Medicare fund to ensure that we have funding for our hospitals in the future. This government is planning for the future and not looking 12 years behind us, which the Labor Party is doing with their industrial relations policy.

I say to you, Mr Deputy Speaker, and I say to the Australian Labor Party: it is time they turned around and faced the future and stopped hiding behind the Leader of the Opposition because they know he is the only one who can make up for the deficiencies that the Australian Labor Party has across the balance of the front bench. Trade union hacks will never stand up when it comes to good policy against the kinds of policies that this government not only has implemented in the past but will be implementing in the future. That is our track record, that is our plan for the future and that is the reason why the Australian people know that the Labor Party is a fabricated con and they will not accept them.

They are a little bit like the Spice Girls. We have a ‘Scary Spice’ in the member for Grayndler. Mr Albanese is definitely ‘Scary Spice’. We have a ‘Ginger Spice’ with the member for Lalor, Julia Gillard. ‘Posh Spice’ would surely have to go to the member for Lilley, Wayne Swan. I struggled a little bit with ‘Sporty Spice’. I had to settle for Dick Adams, the member for Lyons, because I figured that is about as accurate as it gets in the Labor Party. Of course, we have a ‘Baby Spice’ in the form of the Leader of the Opposition. That is the substance of the Australian Labor Party. They are a group manufactured on the basis of what the trade union movement thinks is best for this country. It will not last; it is time that we shine a light on the frontbench team of the Australian Labor Party, expose the union hacks for what they are and, more importantly, shine a light straight through the rhetoric we have heard from the Australian Labor Party and focus on performance. This government hosted APEC. This government got the Sydney declaration. This government has performed for all Australians, and we have a plan to keep doing that in the future. The Australian Labor Party do not have a plan. All they have is a ‘me too’ response whenever we announce anything and the simple fact is that, if you look at Labor’s performance at a state level, such as in my state of Queensland, you will see that they cannot live up to their rhetoric. (Time expired)

Duncan Kerr (Denison, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Minister for Health and Ageing concluded his remarks by saying that the government over the last few days had been displaying ‘exemplary candour and honesty’ and the public would be able to vote knowing what they would get—more of the same. We will get more of the same, but what is that saying? It is not a fantasy of the Labor opposition. Jennifer Hewett in the Australian today gave us more of the same. She described what occurred in the House yesterday.

Howard sat down and Costello then stared straight ahead, stern-faced. No comments passed between them. There was no need. Their mutual passionate hatred and Costello’s obvious and outraged sense of betrayal echo far more loudly than any words either man uttered in public yesterday.

Yesterday I also spoke on the MPI and I made a maritime analogy to the great story of Moby Dick and the captain with his fiery eyes ablaze chasing the mad illusion that had sustained him for so long. Nautical allusions abound, because today we have a headline describing, instead of a noble captain going down with the ship, a tarnished Prime Minister jumping ship. This Prime Minister is quite content to leave his crew chained to the rails on the rotting hulk going down in the becalmed seas in which the government is now stranded.

The reality is that the Prime Minister does not trust his cabinet, and cabinet does not trust the Prime Minister. You know what? They are both absolutely right. For once I can agree with both the Prime Minister and the cabinet. They are each equally untrustworthy. This government have now gone beyond the analogy to Weekend at Bernie’s, with the Liberal Party carting around the corpse of the Prime Minister with sunglasses on pretending there is still political life in the body, to more or less an episode of Monty Python, with the public watching the government striving to pretend that the parrot is not dead but that it is really alive. In fact, they actually want you to vote for the parrot. This is an extraordinary situation. The Prime Minister put forward his own obituary and death notice last night on the 7.30 Report, but he still wants the public to vote for him, to vote for the political corpse.

We have the extraordinary situation where the Prime Minister sent out his emissary, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, to seek the views of his cabinet, got those views and then said, ‘I’m terribly sorry, but cabinet has been overruled by Janette.’ That is an extraordinary situation. Terry McCrann, not the Labor Party, said:

Janette’s ruling the roost—and that’s untenable.

What was really to be expected? With apologies to Kim Beazley, who used the analogy last evening, it is a bit like Stalin sending out Molotov to ask the opinion of the commissars about how he is going. The Liberal frontbench have not realised what happens in that circumstance if you give an honest answer. In their case, they have simply been ignored and trampled over as irrelevant to the decision-making process, but in Stalin’s time you were shot. The real answer that John Howard needed to come back was, ‘We are doing excellently well. We are nearly 20 per cent behind in the polls and the public thinks that our Work Choices legislation is a crock, but, Prime Minister, you are doing exceedingly well.’ That was the answer that was needed and, when it was not given, the Prime Minister supplied it for himself. He put the medals on himself. Listen to his performance in question time today. The question from the member for Cowper was addressed to ‘the greatest ever Australian Treasurer’, and the response was to ‘the greatest ever member for Cowper’. The member for Moncrieff was talking about the ‘miracle economy of the world’. They are all pinning—(Time expired)

Ian Causley (Page, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That was a pathetic effort from somebody who was carried as a carcass up to the backbench some time ago now. I want to talk a little bit about the media to start with and then I want to get back on to policy. I have a good reason for doing this. When I see stories in the media that refer to a supposed backbencher or a senior minister or whatever, I believe that to be code for a manufactured story. If they cannot name people, I do not believe what is in the story.

Why do I say that? I will give you a number of reasons. I have been in politics for 23½ years and I can give you a number of reasons, even ones since I have been down here. There was a story manufactured by Sue Dunleavy about some comments that were made to the member for Gellibrand. That was an absolutely manufactured story and the paper had to apologise.

Back when I was a member of the New South Wales parliament, the Sydney Morning Herald ran a story in Spectrum called ‘In the Nationals’ interest’. It was two pages of fraud against the Nationals. That cost them hundreds of thousands of dollars in court because they did no background on it, they did not do their homework and they did not even have the ethics to ask me my side of the story. I will give you another example while I am at it. Quentin Dempster, David Margan and Murray Hogarth—Murray Hogarth, by the way, was the reporter on the Sydney Morning Herald story—did an item on the 7.30 Report about the redevelopment of the Ryan Hotel in Lismore. All they did was crawl around the pubs and get the pub gossip and run a story on it. They did not come near me or the respected mayor of the city. All I can say is that they were lucky I was busy with the Sydney Morning Herald, or they would have copped the same. There are no ethics and they do not do their homework.

Let us talk about some policies. The member for Grayndler talked about policies. The member for Grayndler and the member for Kingsford Smith are fanatical ideologues. The member for Griffith, the Leader of the Opposition, is running around to the businesses of Australia saying: ‘Don’t worry, we’ve got control of this. There won’t be any problems with our environment policy; it won’t affect industry.’ But the member for Hunter, who comes from an area where we have an aluminium smelter, has not told them the price of electricity will go up three times. The member for Richmond has not told her electorate that, if they are going to go to wind power, there will be windmills all over St Helena in her electorate. That is the policy.

If the member for Griffith thinks he is going to control ideologues like the member for Grayndler and the member for Kingsford Smith, I have got news for him. I know them both. I know the member for Kingsford Smith from a long way back—when he was head of the ACF and I was a minister in the New South Wales government. These are situations that are going to put a lot of pressure on the Leader of the Opposition. He cannot resist it. He cannot win that. He is weak. We have seen that whenever real pressure has come on. He is weak and he cannot control it. So that is what the Australian people have to look at very carefully.

We talk about the fact that the Prime Minister might be retiring. He has been honest enough to say that he probably will not continue right through the next term—unlike a lot of other people—and we have the prospect of the member for Higgins, the Treasurer, as Prime Minister. I put it to you, Mr Deputy Speaker Somlyay, that the prospect of having the member for Higgins as Prime Minister is a long way in front of the prospect of having the member for Lalor, the deputy leader on the other side, as Prime Minister. I think the Australian people would be terrified if they knew there was a prospect that, in the faction fighting that will occur within the Labor Party if they ever get into government—and most certainly if they lose the election—that the member for Lalor might be the leader of the Labor Party. It is a terrifying thought. That is the sort of thing we have to look at. We have to look at who these members along the front bench are and what they represent. I think that is fairly clear.

Let us have a close look at the member for Hunter. He claims that he represents the mining industry and the Hunter Valley. The mining industry and the Hunter Valley are going to be under extreme pressure from the policies of the Labor Party. Again, the people of Australia have not been told that if they do go to clean coal technology it is twice as expensive as the coal we have at the present time. Do you think the people of Australia are prepared to pay two or three times the price for electricity? Do you think the people of Australia are prepared to have a carbon tax on petrol which will increase the price of petrol by 7c a litre? These are the issues that must be addressed. (Time expired)

Alex Somlyay (Fairfax, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The discussion is now concluded.