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

I seek leave to move a motion of censure against the Prime Minister.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving the following motion forthwith: That this House censures the Prime Minister for dishonouring the solemn pledges he made to the Australian people and for now walking away from those promises after being forced to admit he can’t keep them and they should never have been made in the first place, and:

(1)

in particular for promising:

(a)

in this House that no working family would be worse off as a consequence of the Government’s industrial relations law changes when day by day, we have examples of workers losing pay at a time when the cost of living is increasing;

(b)

to fix public hospitals, or take them over, and having done neither, by now walking away from his promise to give the Australian people more say in how their health system is run;

(c)

to help everyday Australians cope with rising costs of living yet failing to help families and pensioners manage increasingly tight household budgets including the failure of his flawed FuelWatch and GroceryChoice schemes;

(d)

to do something about homelessness and indigenous housing when after two years, communities are still in crisis; and

(e)

to leave the superannuation system alone, in his own words, “no change to the superannuation laws, one jot, one tiddle”, before then ripping $4 billion out of superannuation and slashing the Superannuation Co-contribution Scheme for low and middle income earners; but

(2)

most of all:

(a)

for trying to obscure the truth behind many of his Government’s policies with a wall of incomprehensive words and an army of spin-doctors when all the Australian people want is simple, straightforward answers about the issues that affect them and a real plan to pay off debt, safeguard the economy, protect jobs and take this country forward.

What we have seen today is a Prime Minister who is deceptive, a Prime Minister who is weak and a Prime Minister who, above all else, is tricky with the Australian public. On three important issues, we have tried to bring this Prime Minister and this government to account in the House today. First of all, we have tried to bring the Prime Minister to account on his broken promise to fix the public hospital system by the middle of 2009 and, if it is not fixed, to take over the public hospital system. Of all the commitments that this Prime Minister made prior to the last election, I believe this was the most significant. The Australian people know that the state Labor governments have been mismanaging public hospitals for years and years. This Prime Minister was going to be different. He came before the Australian public and said, ‘I’m going to fix this.’ Remember? He said, ‘The buck will stop with me, and, if the states have not fixed the problem by the middle of 2009, I’m going to take them over.’

Well, that was 2007; 2009 has come and gone; 2010 is well and truly here. What did we have the Australian Prime Minister tell the Australian people in this parliament today? Isn’t he a brave man! Isn’t he a man for decisive action! He said, ‘We’ll seek to achieve a compromise with the states.’ Here he is, ‘Courageous Kevin’, the man who was going to take the public hospital system over. What does he say today? He does not offer us a takeover; he offers us a decision-making framework. Here he is, the lifelong bureaucrat, addicted to process, committees, reviews and liaison—this is the stuff of his life. He told us today that, yes, there will be a bold plan, but after the states and territories have reached their decision. He wants to be bold; it is just that the states and territories are holding him back. This is a man who cannot do anything without the agreement of the states and territories—and the public are absolutely sick of it.

Then, of course, we had the superannuation promise—not one jot, not one tittle of change will be made to the superannuation system. We know that $4 billion was ripped out, we know that the co-contribution scheme was drastically changed in the last budget. What does big brave Kevin say on radio last Friday? He says, ‘Oh, just a bit of finetuning.’ You know, something is hovering over this Prime Minister: core promises. This is a man who is dishonest with the Australian people, and now he is slipping and sliding and twisting and turning, engaging in sneaky word games to try and get out of the responsibility that he has for breaking the solemn pledges that he has made to the Australian people.

Of all the things that the Australian public are concerned about, of all the things that working families are concerned about, there is nothing so much as their take-home pay. There is nothing so important to the working families of this country as the take-home pay of their breadwinners. This is a prime minister who stood up and said time and time again that nothing that the government does will hurt the take-home pay of Australian workers. He said it in parliament; he said it out of parliament. And it was not just him and it was not just in relation to the government’s transitional bill; it was plainly in relation to the government’s substantive bill. I quote the Deputy Prime Minister:

I can certainly guarantee that there’s nothing in the operations of Labor’s system that is going to make people worse off.

And didn’t she get nailed by Laurie Oakes on Sunday! Wasn’t that the toughest interview and didn’t you see, Mr Speaker, all of a sudden the wind knocked right out of her sails? She knows that she and the Prime Minister are guilty of a gross deception against the Australian people.

Let us just run through it. You have got hospitality workers in many states, not exactly rich people earning $150,000 a year in the eyes of the government; these are people who are lucky to earn $20 an hour, and in some states they going to be $3 an hour worse off as a result of this government’s changes, as a result of this government’s broken promise. We heard a lot of posturing from the Minister for Health and Ageing and from the Prime Minister today about the alleged wrongs of the former government. Who are just about the hardest working people and most decent and honourable people in our community but nurses, particularly nurses in aged care, and those aged care nurses are going to be up to $300 a week worse off as a result of this government’s changes. It is a flagrant breach of the government’s promise. Members opposite like to talk about Work Choices. The nurses union says that the government’s scheme is worse than Work Choices, and it is. We would never have ripped $300 a week out of the wages of the good, honest working people of this country.

The Prime Minister has plainly misled the parliament by claiming that no-one is going to be worse off under his scheme when plainly people are very, very much worse off under his scheme. Let me just say this. The most solemn principle that must be adhered to by members of this place is: do not mislead this parliament. I cite none other authority than Gough Whitlam himself: ‘The principle is that the parliament must be able to accept assurances given to it by a minister. If those assurances prove to be misleading, the minister concerned must be held responsible. He must resign.’ Let us not be content with Gough. I am quoting the Prime Minister himself:

Trust in any democracy is a fragile thing, and trust is based on truth. If you fracture truth, you fracture the trust upon which it is based.

That is the Prime Minister himself. He has failed his own test, and he deserves to be censured. (Time expired)

Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Joe Hockey (North Sydney, Liberal Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. In a press conference on 29 February 2008 the Prime Minister said:

Trust is the key currency of politics and unless you can be trusted to honour that which you’ve committed to do then I’ve got to say, you’re not going to obtain the enduring respect of the Australian people.

In front of the most sacred building in this capital, the Australian War Memorial, the Prime Minister said on 17 March 2008:

… we will honour all of our pre-election commitments. Every one of them, every one of them.

The Prime Minister is right: there is a measure of trust between Australian representatives in this place and the Australian people. What has now become perfectly evident to everyday Australians is that this Prime Minister has broken that bond of trust. This Prime Minister made a commitment to the Australian people that he would fix the hospital system by the middle of 2009 and that, if he did not deliver, he would hold a referendum to take over the hospitals from the states. This Prime Minister made a commitment that working families in Australia would not be worse off as a result of his new workplace laws, yet each day evidence comes out that they are worse off. This Prime Minister made a commitment to the Australian people that they would have cheaper household goods, that they would have cheaper fuel and that he would do that by setting up websites and a range of other initiatives. Groceries are more expensive, electricity is more expensive, water is more expensive, gas is more expensive, education is more expensive, going to hospital is more expensive and medical costs for Australian families are more expensive. Yet this Prime Minister asks for trust! He asked the Australian people. He asked the educators, the health carers, the patients and the students to trust him that he would keep his promises. Even on Friday on Melbourne radio the Prime Minister tried to justify a broken promise—$4 billion. It was finetuning in the same league as the honesty of Fine Cotton—$4 billion. When the Prime Minister was asked, ‘What’s the difference between substantive and minor?’ the Prime Minister said, hand on heart:

Substantive goes to the entire system, as opposed to let's call it finetuning at the edges …

…            …            …

These things affect people fundamentally. That’s why Neil you have got to be absolutely straight up and down with people about what you are going to do and then take it to the Australian people if you are going to make any substantive changes.

…            …            …

As I’ve said, I’m not prejudging what is the independent review—

we have no idea what he is talking about now—

because I haven’t worked my way through that. But if we make any decisions in that respect it’ll be subject to full scrutiny and people will make up their mind one way or the other.

That’s a new definition of ‘finetuning’. Sadly, it is a definition of ‘broken promise’. It is about breach of trust. It is a definition that this Prime Minister has set for himself, along with his own benchmark, that illustrates the fact that the Prime Minister has misled the Australian people. He has broken that sacred bond of trust which he asked the Australian people for in 2007 and which he pretended to honour in 2008. But, in 2009-10, we know this Prime Minister cannot be trusted. If the Prime Minister cannot keep his 2007 election commitments, how can Australians expect him to keep his promises in 2010? How can they expect to trust a Prime Minister who breaks his word, who enjoins the notion of trust? How can they expect that Prime Minister to solemnly look the Australian people in the eye and honour commitments made in 2010, when, as each day passes, Australians are suffering the impact of broken promises?

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What is really interesting for the nation about this motion is that it comes on the day when the member for Wentworth stood to his feet and belled the cat on climate change policy. What this is about, with the pre-prepared speeches by those opposite, is making sure that they can fill the time, fill the space, and make sure there is no focus on the fact that two months ago they stood rock solid behind the then Leader of the Opposition on the approach to climate change.

Today is all about one thing: distraction with a capital ‘D’, because the former Leader of the Opposition stood to his feet and said unequivocally why the coalition had supported an emissions trading scheme. He said unequivocally that the alternative scheme would be a fiscal disaster. So what we have here is a simple parliamentary tactic, a parliamentary device, to take the attention away from climate change. Interestingly, the last several questions during question slid away from the topic that they have held to be so fundamentally important over this last week or so and which now has been relegated to the margins because the member for Wentworth belled the cat and exposed the Leader of the Opposition for what he is. The Leader of the Opposition’s baseline position is, ‘Climate change is absolute crap.’ Then he went on to say, ‘Well, the government has a mandate to act on an emissions trading scheme.’ That was his second position. His third position was, ‘If they accept the opposition’s amendments, then we will support the emissions trading scheme.’ His fourth position on emissions trading and climate was as follows: ‘We should oppose it.’ That was his view. In fact what he said, once he got to the eve of the Liberal Party election ballot, was, ‘I’m fundamentally opposed to action on climate change.’

Here is a very interesting further twist: when he has been asked since then about the change from December to January or from November to December in his support for an emissions trading scheme, the Leader of the Opposition has gone around saying, ‘Well, things changed at Copenhagen.’ There is a little problem with that, Tony: Copenhagen happened two weeks after you announced your change in policy. There is a little sequencing problem there. What in fact you sought to do was grasp the politics of the internal battle within your party and wrest the leadership from the member for Wentworth, the former Leader of the Opposition. That is what it was all about. In fact, when asked on 1 December by a journalist why he was changing suddenly, for the fifth time, his position on climate change, the ‘straight talk Tony’ response was: ‘Oh, Mate, the politics have changed. They’ve changed big time.’ So, ‘Captain Principle’, ‘Captain Consistent’, the straight-talking Leader of the Opposition, with five different positions on climate change, having gone to the previous election with hand on heart, supporting the introduction of an emissions trading scheme, then seeks to tell us he has changed posture because of Copenhagen while having in fact announced that change in posture two weeks before Copenhagen was convened.

That is because the Leader of the Opposition just makes it up as he goes along. Every single thing he makes up as he goes along. Whether it is the matter he raised in his motion moved just before about the future of the hospital system—the stentorian Tony Abbott as health minister telling the nation three years ago that he was going to take over the hospital system. That is what he thought the future should be. Then he gets to the first question asked about the future of the hospital system when he became the Leader of the Opposition and he says, ‘I didn’t mean that.’ In Battlelines, where he is supposed to have given his real, heartfelt position, what does he say? He says on the future of the emissions trading scheme that he ‘backed the then government’s view because it was the most cost-effective approach’. That was supposed to be Tony Abbott unbottled. That was supposed to be Tony Abbott uncapped. That was supposed to be Tony Abbott telling like it is—except, once again, it just changed, as each position changes along the way.

What is fascinating about today’s debate, in particular in terms of its dimensions on health and hospitals, is that it comes back to the Leader of the Opposition getting to his feet and speaking about integrity on health and hospitals. I have a few words that I think the nation may remember, which came from the Leader of the Opposition when he was health minister of Australia for four years. He said to the Australian people he would provide a ‘rock-solid guarantee’. What was that rock-solid, ironclad guarantee about? Was it about the Medicare safety net? Was this minister responsible for it? I think he was. Regarding the integrity of the Leader of the Opposition against the benchmark he just sought to advance, which is to honour your commitments to the Australian people, he said to everyone prior to the election that they had from him a ‘rock-solid, ironclad guarantee’ as far as the future of the Medicare safety net went, and what did he do? As soon as the election was held, as the minister responsible, the health minister of Australia, he welshed on it. That goes to the absolute core of the integrity of the argument being advanced by the Leader of the Opposition.

Can I also add this: he stands at the dispatch box and talks about integrity as it relates to the health system when, as health minister of Australia, he ripped $1 billion from the public hospitals of Australia. He goes also to the question of the government’s record of achievement in health and hospitals—one billion dollars ripped out by the Leader of the Opposition and a 50 per cent increase in funding to hospitals under this government. Secondly, under this government 125 hospitals have received new elective surgery equipment and operating theatres in just two years.

Opposition Member:

Opposition member interjecting—

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He interjects: ‘That didn’t make much of a difference.’ The Leader of the Opposition would be interested to know that it made a difference to 62,000 elective surgery procedures, which, as health minister of Australia ripping a billion dollars out of the system, he sought simply to undermine. Thirdly, 37 hospitals are receiving upgrades to their emergency departments. Of course, the Leader of the Opposition’s record on direct funding to emergency departments was zero as health minister—not one brass razoo, not a single dollar either to emergency departments or to elective surgery.

Then there is $3.17 billion for 36 major health infrastructure projects. This is the first government in Australian history to directly invest in the capital that is the building needs of the public hospital system of Australia. What did he say for four years as health minister of Australia? He said: ‘That’s not my problem. It’s the states’ problem.’ What we have done, for the first time, is invest directly in our hospitals. That is why we are investing $100 million into the future development of the Nepean Hospital. That is why we are going to make investments like that elsewhere in the country as well.

He asked about achievement and honouring our commitments to improve health outcomes for the Australian people. Five hundred and sixty thousand teenagers have received a check-up under the Medicare Teen Dental Plan, which did not exist when he was health minister. It was brought in by us, and half a million kids, often from lower income profiles, are getting a dental check-up which they would otherwise not have got.

The Leader of the Opposition sat on his hands and did nothing about the chronic shortage of nursing places in Australia. Therefore, under this government in its first year of operation, 2009, universities offered an additional 1,094 undergraduate nursing places. When he was health minister, this man froze GP training places. How could he do that against the health needs of the nation? Since coming into office we have increased GP training places by 75 in 2009 alone. A further achievement—and they often guffaw about as if there is something remarkable about it—is the implementation of the GP Super Clinics program across the country. We are funding 36 of them across the country. How many did they fund? Zero. Funding agreements underpin 28 of them, and a number are already operating, compared to a record of zero on the part of those opposite. Aged care places have increased by nearly 10,000. Six hundred and sixty-two transitional care places have been delivered to help nearly 5,000 older Australians, and the Leader of the Opposition gets to his feet and says, ‘Where is your integrity on the question of health and hospitals?’

I say to him that in two years alone we have achieved more by way of investments into the system than he achieved in 12 years in the previous government. That is the basic comparator, which is why I said to him earlier today that we welcome fundamentally this debate on health and hospitals. And let us never forget that as a member of the government he axed the Commonwealth dental program, with 650,000 Australians on public dental waiting lists.

I go back to where this debate began. Why have they brought it on today all of a flush and all of a hurry? Because of their fear of the member for Wentworth being on television tonight. We know what the member for Wentworth had to say earlier in his general character reference concerning the Leader of the Opposition. His reference to the Leader of the Opposition and the policy he was putting forth in terms of climate change was this:

Any policy that is announced will simply be a con, an environmental fig leaf to cover a determination to do nothing.

That is what the member for Wentworth, Malcolm Turnbull, said about Tony Abbott. I think the Australian people spot this for what it is. (Time expired)

Question put:

That the motion (Mr Abbott’s) be agreed to.

Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.