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 on 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 from moving forthwith:

That this House censures the Prime Minister for her consistent failure to be honest with the Australian people.

We have a right to move a censure motion in this parliament, and the Prime Minister has an obligation to respond. She has a duty to this parliament and she should not shirk her duty. I have to say no previous Prime Minister, no Prime Minister in living memory, would be as cowardly in facing this parliament as this Prime Minister is. That is why standing orders should be suspended.

Standing orders must be suspended because this parliament needs to debate the Prime Minister's consistent failure to be open and honest with the Australian people. And hasn't there been a long litany of betrayals? There was her failure to be straight with the member for Griffith over the prime-ministership. There was her failure to be honest with the Australian people before the last election over the carbon tax. There was her failure to be honest and straight with the member for Denison over poker machine reform. There was her betrayal of the member for Scullin over the speakership. There was her failure, seen again and again in question time this week, to be honest with the Australian people and this parliament over the carbon tax, pretending time and time again that it had no impact on the decision to close the Kurri Kurri smelter when plainly it had every impact on that decision.

Is it any wonder that Bill Kelty, in desperation over the legend of the Labor Party, said to his former colleagues, 'Start with the truth. Why don't you try the truth?' This is a Prime Minister who has never seen the truth, never known the truth and, if she ever saw it, she would flee from it, as she flees from this parliament day in, day out. Where this Prime Minister has particularly failed to be straight with the people and the parliament—and this is why standing orders should be suspended—is over the member for Dobell and his statement to the parliament earlier this week.

At a human level, I have a great deal of sympathy for the member for Dobell. All of us in this chamber, including members on this side of the House, have a great deal of sympathy at a human level for the member for Dobell. We have no sympathy though for a government and for a prime minister who have put him in this position by insisting that he remain in the parliament when the honourable course of action for him would be to resign. That would be the honourable course of action for the member for Dobell. Standing orders must be suspended—

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I am reluctant to move a point of order, but there is a very clear standing order for which the Leader of the Opposition's statements are out of order. There cannot be a statement that someone must resign from the parliament. It is clearly out of order.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition has the call and will refer to the motion before the chair.

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

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. Standing orders must be suspended because it is the Prime Minister who is in the dock here, not the member for Dobell. There are many members of parliament over the years whose behaviour has been questionable, but it is how their party leaders have dealt with that behaviour that really matters and has determined the standing or otherwise of this parliament.

Standing orders must be suspended so this Prime Minister's integrity can be debated. That is the fundamental issue that has been before the parliament this week. For months the Prime Minister has been saying to us every time we have asked questions about the member for Dobell, 'Just wait for the Fair Work Australia report,' and we waited, and we waited, and we waited, and we waited. For almost four years we waited for that report. I have to say it was worth waiting for. There were damning findings in that report, damning findings that $100,000 of union members' cash had been withdrawn improperly and unaccountably, that hundreds of thousands of dollars of union members' money had been used improperly to secure election and that $6,000 of union members' cash had been used on escort services. These are facts, these are findings of facts, not mere allegations. And where is the Prime Minister? She is skulking in the whip's office rather than addressing this issue of integrity which is dogging her government.

Standing orders must be suspended because for months the Prime Minister said she had full confidence in the member for Dobell. She said she wanted him to be in the parliament for many, many years. Now, along with the carbon tax that she will not actually name, this is the one subject that she refuses to deal with. She said to the ACTU that she was disgusted with a member and with a union, refusing to name the member and refusing to name the union. She told the public that a line had been crossed, but refused to explain exactly what that line had been. Now—and this is why standing orders must be suspended—she says that the member is too tainted to sit with Labor in the caucus, but he is not too tainted to sit with Labor in the parliament. That is why standing orders must be suspended.

This government has no concern for the member for Dobell, as the huge absence of members opposite during his statement demonstrated. This government is only concerned with its own survival, and that is why standing orders must suspended. The Prime Minister needs to say who she believes. Does she believe the meticulous, exacting report and findings of Fair Work Australia or does she believe the member? Does she believe this meticulous report or does she believe a self-serving piece of parliamentary theatre? Standing orders must be suspended so this Prime Minister can declare who she backs. Does she back her creation, Fair Work Australia, or does she back the member whose support she is so desperately clinging to to survive in office? This is a fundamental question of integrity for the Prime Minister, and that is why it is so disgraceful that she will not stand up in this parliament and answer it.

The Prime Minister cannot avoid dealing with this fundamental choice and she should not run away from it, because Fair Work Australia and the member for Dobell both cannot be right. Either the member for Dobell has misled the parliament or Fair Work Australia is guilty of the most extraordinary incompetence, of the most remarkable conspiracy, in the long and not always glorious history of this parliament. I say to members opposite that the Australian public are watching what happens in this parliament. They are embarrassed by the revelations about the member for Dobell but more and more they are impatient and disgusted with this Prime Minister.

Standing orders should be suspended because there is nothing wrong with our country that a change of government would not improve. More particularly there is nothing wrong with this parliament that a change of government could not fix. This parliament itself is not the problem. The problem is a government and a Prime Minister that are consistently trashing, debasing and demeaning this parliament in their desperate quest to survive. This is a rotten government, a rotten Prime Minister. It should go and it should go now.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. It is bad enough that the Prime Minister breaks her promises to the Australian people, but it is even worse that she takes the coward's course of not standing up and fighting for her position. She takes the coward's course of running from the fight, turning her back to the battle and, instead, leaving it up to the Leader of the House every time to defend her tawdry record in office in this place on these suspension motions. But it is understandable because how could the Prime Minister stand in this House and defend the indefensible.

Mr Ruddock interjecting—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Berowra.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is no surprise that she will not be here today, that she will not stand in this House to defend the indefensible. That is another reason why she should be censured: for her failure to be honest with the Australian people. She should be censured because the Prime Minister has lost the trust of the Australian people, she should be censured because the Prime Minister presides over a rotten government and she should be censured because the Australian people deserve better. I thought in question time I was not listening to Julia—

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Manager of Opposition Business.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Standing orders should be suspended because this motion of censure against the Prime Minister is the most important matter that we can deal with before the House today. Questioning the honesty, the integrity and the character of a Prime Minister is a very serious step. We have taken it very rarely in the last five years. We may have moved many suspensions; we have hardly moved any censures. The import part of this debate is that it is about the censure of the Prime Minister. In question time the Prime Minister said:

… there is one side of politics … that you can trust …

I thought for a minute that I was listening to Julia Zemiro the comedian, not to Julia Gillard the Prime Minister. How could the Prime Minister stand in this place and seriously so argue, after the breach of faith on the carbon tax, the mandatory precommitment for poker machines, the East Timor solution, the citizens assembly and the Australia Day riot? One after another, she has broken her promises to the Australian people. That is why standing orders should be suspended, so that we can debate this motion properly and so that speakers from both sides of the House can take the time necessary.

If the government think they can defend the Prime Minister, why would they not take the censure? Former Prime Minister Howard used to take every censure that the then opposition moved, because former Prime Minister Howard had the confidence to stand in this House and defend his record, to stand and defend his government.

This Prime Minister failed to take the censure. She scurried from the chamber to coward's castle and refused to stand in here and defend her record, and for that she should be condemned. Don't just take my word for it, Madam Deputy Speaker: standing orders should be suspended and this motion should be debated, because there are people on that side of the House who want to debate this motion. Some of them have done so in the last three months. In fact, a third of the caucus voted against the Prime Minister. Rather than vote for this Prime Minister, they voted for someone they described as a psychopath.

In fact, former Prime Minister Rudd was the one who, on 24 February, said:

Julia has lost the trust of the Australian people …

He also said:

It wasn't K Rudd who made a pre-election commitment on a carbon tax. It wasn't K Rudd who made a particular commitment to Mr Wilkie on the question of poker machines. It wasn’t K Rudd who had anything to do with the East Timor solution or the Malaysia solution. These were initiatives and decisions taken uniquely by the prime minister.

Wasn't he absolutely right?

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Manager of Opposition Business needs to return to the motion before the chair.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And that is why the Prime Minister should come into the House and debate this motion. The reason why standing orders should be suspended is that the censure motion must be debated in this House. I call on the cross-benchers to support this motion to suspend, because debating the integrity of the Prime Minister and her character is the most important thing we can do in this parliament to try to restore some integrity to this disastrous 43rd Parliament, which has broken the confidence of the Australian people in their national government. It is time now—not in June, not at the end of next year—for the Prime Minister to go. It is time right now, today, for the caucus to act, to do what we all know they want to do, to save their own political hides and dispatch this Prime Minister.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We are not going to take lectures about parliamentary behaviour from this Leader of the Opposition, who is the only member of parliament to ever be thrown out of parliament for physically confronting a Vietnam vet with no legs, for marching across the chamber when he was out of control, to Graham Edwards. The Leader of the Opposition is not able to control his temper. He does not have the temperament to be the Prime Minister of this nation. He does not have the character to be Prime Minister of this nation.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Madam Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Leader of the House is not speaking to the motion. He is telling false statements—in fact, telling lies about the Leader of the Opposition.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Leader of the House has the call.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Deputy Speaker. This is a Leader of the Opposition who is into the politics of confrontation, aggression and conflict. That is what defines him—his— very meaning because he does not want to engage in a debate about substance and policy. Here we are, one week after the budget and the coalition are moving a suspension of standing orders, not to debate the economic policy and their alternative—which he gave on the Thursday night, which had no substance at all—not to debate the economic impact of what is occurring in Europe, not to debate the impact of what is happening with employment, climate change, social policy, transport policy, health policy and education policy. No. On 58 separate occasions they have moved a suspension of standing orders. That is why you just cannot take them seriously.

The opposition said before, 'This is a suspension of standing orders to have a censure debate. We don't do that very often.' Thirty-four times they have done it—they are delusional, and the parliament is only halfway through the term—out of the 58 suspensions. They are so delusional.

It is as though they go into the office of the Manager of Opposition Business for tactics every morning. They ask: 'What will we do today?' The 30 of them who sit on the 'tactics committee' have a debate and they all disagree, so they end up settling on: 'I know, we'll do what we did yesterday.' It is groundhog day because, no matter what is happening in the economy, today we had a few questions about the company in Kurri Kurri. You would think the opposition would want a debate on it. No, no. The Leader of the Opposition—the workers' friend—will be up there on Saturday, with a nudge, nudge, wink, wink, saying that it is all a result of the carbon price, but he is actually not prepared to debate the substance. I will tell you what I have been doing today, as a minister of the Crown: I have introduced five pieces of legislation, including legislation to create a national maritime regulator benefiting the economy by $30 billion over 20 years. I have introduced legislation to reform the Navigation Act. The act has been there since 1912 and still has provisions in it to allow a master of a ship to shoot someone and to be immune from prosecution. It still has provisions in it that the master has to be informed if a lunatic is coming on board. That could be appropriate! But we have reformed it—done major reform. We have announced a $20 million package to help exports in Tasmania, with my Tasmanian Labor colleagues and the member for Denison, who lobbied for this project. What did they do about it? Nothing. I will tell you what we have done. We are continuing to work on the Pacific Highway. What are they doing? Sledging it and saying no to it.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The Leader of the House will return to the motion.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The reason why standing orders should not be suspended, Madam Deputy Speaker, is because they are the issues of substance.

That is why I went into politics. I went into politics to make a difference—to make a difference to the people who I grew up with, to the vulnerable people in the community, through things such as the National Disability Insurance Scheme and the education refund and through measures such as the industrial relations reforms we have brought in to get rid of Work Choices and, most fundamentally, to make sure that we have a strong economy.

And there is no stronger economy anywhere in the world. For the first time in 40 years, under this Prime Minister and this Treasurer we have unemployment, official interest rates and inflation all under five per cent—for the first time in 40 years. No wonder they do not want to debate us on substance. If you want to have a debate about those issues, bring it on! But if you just want this self-indulgent, blood-lust for power that we see from this megalomaniac opposite, then we will say no to that, because what we are seeing day after day in this parliament is a trashing of the pillars of democracy, a trashing of the separation of powers, a trashing of the presumption of innocence, a trashing of the rule of law.

It is fundamentally important that we meet the challenge which is there in this hung parliament. A hung parliament is different. It does bring with it different characteristics. It brings forward a challenge for the maturity of our democracy. It is the case that, for the first time since the Second World War, the government does not have a majority on the floor of this parliament. That is an opportunity as well as a challenge. It is an opportunity to have a far more consultative parliament. It is an opportunity to be far more inclusive than the traditional system whereby a government has a majority and uses its numbers to crunch through. It is an opportunity to change that. But what we are seeing from those opposite is the longest dummy spit in Australian political history—a refusal to accept the result from the Australian people in 2010. We see every single day a refusal and a challenge to the legitimacy not of this government but of our democracy. That is what has made them angry. And that is why you have the extraordinary proposition that people should just be told to resign and people should just change the outcome. We even had, last week, the Manager of Opposition Business put notices on the motion—notices on the paper—

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Motions on the Notice Paper.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, the member for Sturt! The Manager of Opposition Business is being petty.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

that people could be suspended from the parliament. He withdrew that this week. He withdrew it. So what is this all about? The idea that, in the future, a government that has a majority would use that majority to change the make-up of an elected parliament. These are precedents that have consequences for the future. This is taking the politics of destructiveness to a very dangerous level indeed. And that is why senior people such as Nick Minchin have warned against the approach of this Leader of the Opposition and those who sit behind him.

I know that many of them are very uncomfortable with the actions of the opposition—very uncomfortable indeed. There was even the issue of the disclosure of the committee that met last night, where you had, to his great credit, Mr Secker agreeing with Yvette D'Ath, the chair, in terms of the reference on that issue. So you have people who have stood up for integrity of process, as did the member for Canning, to his great credit. But what we see continually is a preparedness to trash any rule whatsoever. This bloke is not a conservative; he is just a reactionary.

Ms Anna Burke (Chisholm, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for the debate has expired. The question is that the motion moved by the Leader of the Opposition be agreed to.

Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper