Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I congratulate you, Mr Deputy Speaker Randall, on your elevation to the Speakers' Panel.

Don Randall (Canning, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you.

Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the re-run of the Western Australian Senate election on 5 April approaches, voters will be asking themselves which team of senators and which party is best placed to provide a strong, united team to represent them in federal parliament. In the last two sitting weeks we have seen, from WA Labor members who are normally invisible, two matters of public importance aimed at distracting WA people from the real issues and begging people to vote Labor.

After the last six years of instability in Canberra, when the Labor Party could not govern itself, let alone the country, people are craving a government and a Senate team that will provide the stability that the country needs. While the Liberals have a strong, united team of candidates competing at this election, the same cannot be said of the Labor Party, who, according to a series of media reports around the time their Senate candidates were selected last year, are completely divided, dysfunctional and dominated by deals, with backstabbing amongst union powerbrokers. These are the people who want to represent Labor in Western Australia. These are the people who want to represent WA. An article in the Australian Financial Review by Jennifer Hewett of 11 March 2013 entitled 'State of antagonism to Gillard' said:

The battle over the WA Senate vacancy created by the exit of Chris Evans … is instructive even if details will remain confusing to most of the public.

The retiring WA secretary of the left's United Voice union, Dave Kelly, who has just become a new state Labor MP, has been negotiating for a female United Voice candidate to return from Sydney to take the Senate spot. The right wing Shop, Distributive and Allied (SDA) Employees Association (the old shoppies union) may support this in exchange for United Voice giving its support for the SDA to replace its former state secretary and (near invisible)—

he will be invisible after 30 June—

senator Mark Bishop with its current secretary, Joe Bullock, in the No.1 spot on the Senate ticket.

Who this United Voice candidate is was revealed in an article entitled 'Blast from the past shows up union muscle' in the Weekend West on 16 March by Paul Murray. Paul wrote:

That vacancy is being lined up for one of Mr Kelly's union colleagues, Sue Lines, who wants to return to WA after eight years as an official in the east, to enter Federal Parliament from here.

How great for WA! I can confirm that Senator Lines moved into my electorate of Swan when she got preselection. One of her first contributions was to state on the public record that there should be more Homeswest housing in Belmont and that tenants who commit a crime should not be forced to leave their Homeswest properties. I can tell you, Mr Deputy Speaker, that did not go down well in Belmont.

It seems Brian Burke has also been involved. An article in the West Australian on 12 March 2013 entitled: 'Burke looms amid Labor Senate fears' seems to confirm this:

Brian Burke is continuing to cast a shadow over Labor's Senate … Senator Mark Bishop, whose spot is being challenged by former friend and union ally Joe Bullock, said the weekend's State election showed Federal Labor faced "serious structural issues" in WA that "border on the existential".

"The real problem in my view is Federal Labor does not get WA," he said. "It does not understand its size, its distance or its wealth."

In an editorial dated 13 March 2013, the Australian Financial Review refers to state Labor MP Peter Watson's complaints:

… "party hacks and union officials" have captured Labor, including for parliamentary pre-selection.

It continues:

… as Mr Watson complains, Labor needs more genuine representatives of the community, not labour movement hacks who think they have a God-given right to represent the people.

Paul Murray quoted Labor MP Martin Whitely as saying:

It is too late to reform WA Labor rules in time to prevent factional self-interest dominating the coming Senate preselection round in WA.

This sums it up. Nothing has changed for the Senate election re-run. It is the same Labor candidates from the same WA Labor system who are contesting this election. There does not seem to be much consideration of what the best policies are for WA or which candidate can offer the best representation to the people of WA. It is all about union power.

The people of Western Australia have a clear choice between the dysfunctional Senate team from Labor and the strong, united Liberal Senate team that is stopping the boats and is moving to repeal the carbon and mining taxes, which are anti-Western Australian taxes. As we have heard in this place many times, and as we will hear again, the WA people will not stand for those taxes; they need to be repealed now, and the only thing stopping that is the Labor Party and the Labor Senate team.

There is a clear choice for the Western Australian people in two weeks time: to vote for the Liberals—a strong and united standing Senate team.