Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I seek leave to move that this House has no confidence in 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 Maribyrnong from moving the following motion forthwith:

That this House has no confidence in the Prime Minister.

Seventeen months ago the Prime Minister promised Australian voters a stable, mature and adult government. What has happened? There have been many promises broken by this government, but the promise to run a stable and mature government is arguably the biggest broken promise of this sad government's last 17 months.

The Australian people, unlike those in the parallel universe the government inhabits, have watched with amazement in the last few weeks and days as the once-great Liberal Party huffs and puffs its way up to a leadership spill. Australians know this government is not working for them. I say to the Liberal backbenchers of this government and to the Liberal frontbenchers: it does not matter who you choose. The problem is not the salesperson; the problem is what you are selling to people.

As for the member for Wentworth, who we just heard from: never has a member wanted so much yet would do so little to get the position! He, the Zorro of the dispatch box, has said that he wants the job but he will not fight for the job. He is prepared to injure his Prime Minister but he leaves his supporters hanging. He is a veritable ball of ambivalence!

But this is not new in his political career. For two long, excruciating decades we were with the Hamlet of the Liberal Party—to be Labor or to be Liberal, that is the question! Oh yes, we like your look. But in the end, John Howard had a better chance of beating Kim Beazley, so lucky Liberal Party! The ball of ambivalence chose the Liberals. And then what did he do when he came to parliament? He stalked poor old Brendan Nelson. What did Brendan Nelson ever do to deserve Malcolm Turnbull stalking him?

But, of course, the member for Wentworth was angsting on the spill motion over the weekend. He was able to be conned by Godwin Grech—and we will never forget that! Then he could not even come to terms with Nick Minchin. And there, the man who would be if he could be, got beaten by Tony Abbott! Not once, not twice but time and time again.

Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The Leader of the Opposition appears to have taken the wrong speech from his office today. Perhaps they were not prepared for the outcome of this morning's meeting? He clearly appears to be talking about the wrong member of the chamber and you should draw him back to the motion, which is about the Prime Minister.

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

The Leader of the House makes the point that this is a suspension motion and that the Leader of the Opposition should indeed refer to the suspension motion.

Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take the point of order from the member for 'hedging your bets'! I was going to come to the Prime Minister. I do not often agree with the Prime Minister's policies—in fact I very rarely do. But I felt a little bit on Tony Abbott's point of view today. I mean, he is not as articulate as the member for Wentworth, but he is a bundle of fight, our Prime Minister. He is superglued to that seat, member for Wentworth, and you are going to have to blast him out!

I admit that our Prime Minister has a lot of energy. He runs around constantly biting his own tail. But at least he knows how to fight for something, member for Wentworth. The real shame of this debacle today—the real shame today—is that it is not who leads the Liberal Party; it is that we have heard not a word of repentance from the government about their unfair budget. Australians sat there, perhaps waiting to see the outcome of the spill that never was. But they waited to see any humility from any member of the government. The Minister for Finance let it out of the bag yesterday on Insiders. The interviewer asked the Minister the Finance:

Has anyone in the ministry ever complained to you about the budget? Have they suggested to you that it was unfair?

And the Minister for Finance said, 'Not a one.' Some of them may seek to blame Prince Philip and the knighthood, some of them may seek to blame the absentmindedness of Australian voters, some of them may seek to say that it is the internet or social media and some of the may care to say that if only people understood what they were selling then things would be better. Wrong, wrong and wrong again, people. The problem with this government is that it brought down a budget which broke all the promises it made. They broke their promises. 'No new taxes'. Tell that to the people paying taxes. 'No cuts to education'. Tell that to the states losing their funding for schools. Remember the promise about no changes to health care? Tell that to the people paying the GP tax. This nation does not need a new Liberal leader; it needs a new government.

The Australian people are resilient despite this circus that those opposite are running. People are going to work every day, small business is investing and young people are studying and working in the restaurants—working hard. You have got the nurses caring for the sick and the infirm. You have got a lot of people out there in Australia pulling pretty hard, though what you have got is a nation of lifters being led by a government of leaners, and that is the problem in this country. In the last two, three, six and 18 months we have seen this government fail time and time again. This government will not admit that it is not the opinion polls which really matter here. What we have is a government who will not admit that their budget has beaten them. Forget the embroidery of the Australia Day announcement. Forget the embroidery of knights and dames. That shows we have the Prime Minister with a romantic urge for the 1950s—that is life.

It is not the political ineptitude of the government which I worry about; it is their wrong priorities for the nation. They are more interested in Buckingham Palace than Beijing. They are more interested in forcing down an unfair budget, cutting opportunity and cutting hope. If this government wants to learn anything from the last 18 months, we give you this advice: do not cut the pensions, do not cut Medicare, do not introduce a GP tax and do not introduce $100,000 degrees. While you are at it, why don't you build the Navy submarines in Australia like you promised too? While you are at it, here are some other positive ideas from Labor: maybe we could have a mature debate about becoming a republic in this country? While we are at it, why don't we do something meaningful on the climate change that the on-again, off-again member for Wentworth believes in?

A government member interjecting—

He believed it then, but of course we know and Australia knows that in order for the member for Wentworth to blast the Prime Minister from his seat, he has to sell out whatever views he had on climate change. What we see now is a government causing great disarray with the confidence of Australians. There are clear signs on what this government should do. In the next 12 months you should—

A government member: What would you do, Bill?

You are asking what we should do? Do not cut Medicare. Do not wreck the higher education system. Do not touch the pensioners. What we need is a strategy for growth in this country and you do not have it.

Mr Hockey interjecting—

There is the Treasurer, the ultimate hollow man of Australian politics!

The best proposition we have for this nation is that you drop this budget in its entirety, admit that you have wasted 18 months of the nation's life that we will not get back. Furthermore, we need to stop the marginalisation of the middle class of Australia. You opened up an attack on the minimum wage in this country. You opened up an attack on the aspiration of Australians to have a decent income. You have abandoned the manufacturing sector in this country. This government dares to tell people that if they had a different message-maker then all would be good.

The fundamental problem in this nation is that the Liberal Party has drifted too far to the right. You no longer represent the mainstream of Australian thinking. In that last budget you certainly bit off more than you could chew, and it was because you broke the covenant of trust with the Australian voters. You can sit there and you can put your hands over your ears and say, 'None of this is true.' But the truth of the matter is that Australians have low tolerance for a government who lied their way into office. You do not need different social media. You do not need to have different leaders. What you have to do is to not tell lies to the Australian people. This morning was a debacle. We know it was a debacle, and you know it was a debacle, as are these constant references saying that somehow you have sorted all your issues out. Until you sort out the budget and until you sort out your attack on the working people of Australia, and until you stop intimidating and oppressing the poor and the vulnerable in Australia, your problems will never be fixed.

The Liberal Party has moved the political debate in this country far too much to the extremes. You are an extreme government motivated by an extreme ideology and the member for Wentworth, no matter what he has said in the past, has shown that he is a man prepared to say and do anything to be the Prime Minister of the Liberal Party, and that is not good enough for this country. Australians have not only worked out this Prime Minister; they have worked out the member for Wentworth—a man who will say and do anything to be in power. The answer is clear: we need to have a government who will not cut pensions, who will not introduce— (Time expired)

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

Is the motion seconded?

Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to second the motion. Standing orders need to be suspended today and this motion debated and voted on, because all of us in here know that this is not over. This was not a convincing victory for the Prime Minister in the Liberal Party party room today. It was not convincing victory, because the people of Australia will not accept this man as their Prime Minister. We saw today a historic 68 per cent disapproval rating in Newspoll. This is not over because the Prime Minister cannot survive a 68 per cent disapproval rating in Newspoll. But there is something more important than that: this Prime Minister cannot survive the disapproval of his own backbench. What we know from the vote today in the Liberal Party party room is that two-thirds of this Prime Minster's backbench do not back him. They do not have his back. Two-thirds of his own backbench do not back this Prime Minister. And it is plain that, if the executive had not been bound today, this result would have been even closer.

Standing orders need to be suspended because we know this is not over—because, as the Leader of the Opposition said, it is not the salesman that is the problem; it is the stinking budget that he has been trying to sell. It is the broken promises that have led us to this position. It is the fact that the Prime Minister said before the election, 'No cuts to health, no cuts to education, no change to pensions, no new taxes, no cuts to the ABC and SBS,' and since that time he has broken every single one of those promises.

But I do not blame the Prime Minister for that. We have heard from Liberal Party frontbenchers that no-one on the front bench raised in the cabinet or in the ministry that this budget was unfair. Apparently, no-one on the front bench has said that the budget is a problem. So I do not blame the Prime Minister on his own. I say that it does not matter who it is that leads the Liberal Party. Until they get rid of policies which destroy Medicare, which introduce $100,000 university degrees, which cut the age pension and disability pensions, which cut funding for community centres and for homelessness services—until they get rid of the policies that hurt everyday Australians, it does not matter who leads the Liberal Party; the Australian public will not tolerate this budget of broken promises and the Prime Minister that lied his way into office.

For the good of the nation, the leadership of the Liberal Party has to be sorted out. But, more importantly, for the good of the nation, the budget that introduced so many policies that hurt ordinary Australians needs to be dumped. Now, of course, we all remember that it was not just the promises not to cut health, not to cut education and so on that have been broken. We remember the Prime Minister saying that he was going to lead a grown-up government. He was going to lead a government of no surprises and no excuses. Well, how is that going for you? This has been a government that has dropped the ball.

Australia is taking its place in a world that is changing all the time. We see changing power relations between the great powers. What is Australia's future in this new world order? Joshua Kurlantzick, the senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations, said this on 5 February:

Is Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbott the most incompetent leader of any industrialized democracy?

And he answered:

Abbott's policies have been all over the map, and the lack of coherence has often made the prime minister seem ill-informed and incapable of understanding complex policy issues.

So we need a suspension of standing orders today because we need to sort out the leadership once and for all. We need to sort out the budget of broken promises once and for all. But, most importantly, we need to chart a course for Australia's future that provides certainty to working people in Australia. (Time expired)

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

Well, I will say this, Madam Speaker: we are not going to take lessons in unity from a Leader of the Opposition who backstabbed two prime ministers. We have heard members opposite—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

We will have some silence—

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

talking a lot—

Mr Husic interjecting—

Mr Watts interjecting—

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

including from the member for Chifley and the member for Gellibrand.

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

about a vote of 61-39. Well, I tell you what, Madam Speaker: that is better than Bill Shorten got when he last went before his party room. That is better than Bill Shorten got when he last went before the caucus.

I will say this to the Leader of the Opposition: sure, this government has not got everything right. Sure, this government does not pretend to be perfect. But this is what this government has not done. We have not wasted billions of dollars. We have not put hundreds of lives at risk. And we have not jeopardised Australia's vital international relationships. This is a good government which is getting on with the job of working for the Australian people.

The Leader of the Opposition, you would think, with a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister of our country, would have been prepared to stand up with a serious critique. What we saw from this Leader of the Opposition was the kind of cheap sneer and smear which proves that the Labor Party has not learned any lessons. It is in denial about what it did when it was in government.

Ms Ryan interjecting—

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

The member for Lalor is not in her seat!

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

It has proved that it is utterly, completely unsuitable ever to occupy the government benches of this country.

I accept that this government has had difficulty getting some of its budget measures through the Senate. I accept that. But let us be very clear about exactly what this government has been dealing with. What this government has been dealing with is an absolute fiscal disaster created by members opposite—a fiscal nightmare of unprecedented proportions, selling this country down the river for years to come, intergenerational theft against our children and our grandchildren—and they are not man enough to own up to the problems that they have created. They are not man enough to offer to be part of the solution rather than simply part of the problem.

Let us look at what members opposite created when they were in government: $667 billion of projected debt, $123 billion of accumulated deficits—

Ms Owens interjecting—

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

The member for Parramatta will desist!

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

the six largest deficits in our history, debt growing and growing and growing, and our country paying $1 billion a month every single month just to pay the interest on Labor's debt. It was not just the fiscal ineptitude; it was the utter administrative incompetence of members opposite. They spent $2.5 billion putting pink batts into people's roofs. That killed people. And then they spent the money pulling them out. They spent more than $17 billion on overpriced school halls. They promised to spend $43 billion on a National Broadband Network that was going nowhere fast. Thanks to the stewardship of the member for Wentworth, the Minister for Communications, finally the National Broadband Network is rolling out affordably, on budget and on a revised timetable.

This is a government which is getting on with the job for which it was elected. We promised to stop the boats—they have stopped. We promised to repeal the carbon tax—that is gone. We promised to get rid of the mining tax—that has gone too. We promised to get on with building roads—that is happening, except in states where the Labor government has decided that it does not want new roads. We are getting on with the business of getting our budget back under control.

Members opposite have no plan for the future. They have absolutely no plan for the future. All they have is a long litany of complaints. It is an absolute betrayal. It is a betrayal of our country. It is a betrayal of the kind of decent Labor leaders that members opposite have had in the past, who actually believed in our country and would not just talk about their beliefs—they would actually get on with the kind of reforms that our country needed.

The Leader of the Opposition was asked what his solutions were, and all he could say was a whole lot of things that he would not do. We are prepared to do things. We are prepared to do the tough things, the difficult but necessary things that our country needs if our children and our grandchildren are to enjoy the kind of prosperity and the kind of standard of living that they deserve and which we inherited. This government is determined to ensure that this generation is as good to future generations as previous generations were good to us. We are not going to sell out the future the way members opposite did when they were in government just 18 months ago.

Let's look at what this government has actually delivered: 213,000 jobs in our first calendar year. The Leader of the Opposition says that we are selling out working people. I tell you what: there are more working people now, thanks to this government. Jobs growth now is three times what it was in the last year of the former government. Economic growth is 2.7 per cent, up from 1.9 per cent a year ago. Housing starts are at near record levels—they are 10 per cent higher than they were a year ago. Business registrations are at an all-time record.

The Leader of the Opposition talks about climate change. We will deliver a 12 per cent cut in our emissions on 2005 levels by 2020. We will deliver, on a per capita basis, a 30 per cent cut in emissions by 2020, because we do not just talk about climate change; we do what is necessary. We put the direct action measures that are necessary in place to actually deliver a cut in emissions.

When it comes to Medicare, we are prepared to face up to the reality. It cost us $8 billion a decade ago. It is costing us $20 billion today. It will cost us $34 billion in a decade's time. We are prepared to work with the medical profession of this country to come up with sustainable and lasting reforms.

Members opposite have one strategy for economic growth: it is to spend money they do not have ; it is to waste our children's and our grandchildren's money on things like pink batts, school halls and an NBN that was never getting anywhere fast under Labor. The Leader of the Opposition asks, 'What about getting on with building submarines?' The Leader of the Opposition's contribution to the submarine debate was to engage in cheap, racist ranting against the people of Japan. That was the Leader of the Opposition's contribution, just like he engaged in cheap, xenophobic ranting against foreign workers with his anti-457 campaign when he was in government just a few years ago.

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

Madam Speaker, on a point of order: the Leader of the Opposition has had his attention drawn to the issue of this being a suspension motion. In those last comments the Prime Minister has gone so far away from it being a suspension motion, he should be withdrawing that.

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

The member will resume his seat. The Prime Minister will refer to the suspension motion.

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

If it pleases the Leader of the Opposition, I withdraw. The Labor Party's idea of promoting economic growth is simply to spend money that they do not have. It is not just modern Labor that spends money on things like pink batts that catch fire in people's roofs, school halls that cost double or triple what they should cost and a National Broadband Network that was going nowhere fast; Labor in Victoria is now proposing to spend $1 billion not to build a road. That is their idea of economic growth—spending money not to build a road. This government is getting on with delivering for the Australian people. We were elected to do that, and that is what we are doing.

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

The question is that the suspension motion be agreed to.

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

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