Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. I refer to the previous answer given by the Minister for Justice. Don't Western Australians, including his own Western Australian ministers, deserve to know what the government is keeping secret in the Commission of Audit report?

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the honourable the Prime Minister and I would remind that House that this is a very wide-ranging question.

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How low has a once-great party sunk when some pathetic scare about the Commission of Audit—a report to government, not a report by government—is the best they can do?

This is the best they can do: a pathetic, embarrassing scare campaign which shows that members opposite have no answers for our future. The Labor Party might have a past to be proud of, a past that boasted great prime ministers, like Bob Hawke, and great reformers, like Paul Keating. They must be embarrassed at what has happened to a once great political party. If members opposite are serious about doing the right thing by Western Australians, they should let us get the carbon tax repeal legislation through the Senate. They should let us get the mining tax repeal legislation through the Senate. The Leader of the Opposition over in Perth tries to give people the impression that he does not support the mining tax; here in Canberra, he will not abolish it. I cannot and will not say that he is a hypocrite. I know that he has what is described as situational principles—that is what he has got! Someone whose political principles are situational is not fit to be a national leader.