Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the honourable member for Maribyrnong proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The broken promises and failures of the Government.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

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

After that display during the last answer in question time by the Prime Minister, it is my sad authority to inform the Australian people that the transformation is complete: the member for Wentworth has now become the member for Warringah. Two years ago today, when question time finished, the member for Wentworth followed the member for Warringah out of the door, ready to seize the destiny denied to him by his predecessor. He followed him out the door, but what none of us realised when we watched him follow him out the door was that the member for Wentworth would follow the member for Warringah on every other issue from then onwards.

We have a weak Prime Minister. That is at the heart of the government's dysfunction—a Prime Minister who leads a government united by only one thing: their hatred of Labor, their dislike of the opposition and their dislike of unions. If you take that issue away, there is nothing left of this government. This is a government that can agree on nothing amongst themselves. I could talk today about the costly marriage equality survey—because they couldn't agree—and I could talk today about climate change. But nowhere is the dysfunction and the disunity of this government more on display than with energy prices.

I don't know if government MPs will go to the airport tonight and return to their electorates satisfied with their performance over the past two weeks. I can assure them that, whatever they think, Australians are not satisfied with the state of politics in this country. In the last two weeks, in energy policy in particular, we have seen why Australians are growing to hate politics in Australia. We see a disunity crippling the nation, crippling decision-making, and, most importantly for this parliament, crippling the trust that Australians have in our system. And we see a Prime Minister, who so desperately wanted the job, but, ever since getting the job, all he's wanted to do is hang on to the job and sacrifice every principle he ever stood for.

Two years ago the Prime Minister said to the people of Australia, 'There must be an end to policy on the run and captain's calls.' So the Prime Minister asked the Chief Scientist, who he personally appointed, to prepare a report. The Chief Scientist did the work and when the report came out the Prime Minister's initial reaction about the Clean Energy Target was, 'It has a lot of merit. We will look upon it favourably.' But one comment from the member for Warringah and all we have smelt is the burning rubber of the reversing tyres of the Prime Minister's car. How can it be that the Prime Minister asks the smartest person in the room to do the homework on energy prices, and then he gives to it the dumbest people in the room to mark the homework?

What world do they live in, this government of out-of-touch, unfair MPs? We had the energy minister—what an extraordinary spectacle—standing in parliament and essentially telling the Australian people, 'You've never had it better off when it comes to electricity prices.' It is now apparently the position of the government that, whenever the coalition's in charge, they are putting prices down but, whenever Labor is in charge, that isn't happening. The issue is that the energy minister has said that Australian families and businesses are paying nearly $500 less than they were four years ago. What parallel universe does the Turnbull government live in? The Australian people do not need an out-of-touch energy minister or Prime Minister telling them their power bills are going up. They see the proof every time they open them up. I thought it was a parallel universe in today's question time, as must the Australian people—those who still listen to question time. They must have wondered what on earth the Prime Minister was saying when somehow he said things are getting better. No, Prime Minister, on energy, things are getting worse.

Business knows the facts and individuals and families know the fact. Facts are stubborn things. Wholesale electricity prices have doubled under this government. New South Wales residents have been hit with power price increases of up to 20 per cent alone this year. CSR industrial company reported a 17 per cent increase in the cost of energy. Their bill will exceed $100 million—fact. BlueScope are increasing their energy bill, what they pay, by 75 per cent between 2016 and 2018—fact. And, if the Prime Minister doesn't believe any of that, he should take a day trip from Point Piper out to Parramatta and see how many people clap him on the back and say: 'Well done, old chap! Thank you for raising my electricity prices.' In fact, the Prime Minister should have a postal survey and find out what Australians think about electricity prices and gas prices. He loves the internet; he invented it. He should go on Facebook and see how many people press 'like' when asked whether their prices have gone up. I promise you I know what the result would be.

But instead of getting on with legislating a clean energy target, instead of pulling the trigger on the gas, instead of taking action, all we have seen from this government is schoolyard insults. And whatever happens, the human blame factory, which is now the coalition government, blames everyone else. It blames the states; it blames Labor; it blames previous administrations; it blames future administrations. It blames everybody. It blames the companies; it blames the unions. There is no-one in this country that this government hasn't blamed, except itself.

The fact of the matter is that the climate change and energy price political wars which have dogged this nation from 2007 have got manifestly worse since the coalition was elected in 2013. Anyone who knows anything about gas and energy prices knows that the problem in Australia is a lack of policy certainty. But the problem is that this Prime Minister is so weak that he can't follow the science, the evidence and the facts. Instead, he is tormented by his own bullies, those on the backbench, who insist that we must not change; we must not look at more renewable energy; we must not look at how we have a clean energy target. It is a sorry hallmark. And we see it in the Prime Minister's demeanour. Sure, he gets the odd juice, an energy bolt—he has a bit of Red Bull before he comes into parliament, and he turns red. But the normal and increasingly familiar demeanour of the Prime Minister is of a Prime Minister visibly shrinking and ageing in the job. This is not the job he thought it would be. This is not the job he signed up for. There are all these irritating facts. There is this opposition which doesn't immediately bow down in front of him. His backbench won't do as he says. And the world keeps changing. But of course his motto is: 'There go my people. I must follow them. I am their leader.'

This is a weak Prime Minister. The only thing this out-of-touch Prime Minister can do is tell people what isn't true. The truth is that power prices are going up. It was an unusual competition today to show who was more out of touch. We had the colt from Kooyong and the show pony from Point Piper. And the poor old Minister for the Environment and Energy, feeling a little emboldened, decided to trail his coat. Indeed, he was shredded by the member for Port Adelaide today. In the end, the leader of the government in the House of Reps had to gag their own motion. Mind you, to be fair to that proud son, the inheritor of the Menzian spirit in Kooyong—he loves to finish on a self-proclaimed quote—I'll give him points for this one. At the very end that proud son of Menzies stared valiantly across the dispatch box and declared, 'I end where I finish.' If only he could bring that compelling, laser-like logic to his portfolio!

But the real problem here is that we will have a four-week break from parliament when it rises today, and Australian families and businesses are rightly frustrated that we are no closer to any action on the energy crisis. The weakness of the Prime Minister masks the bigger problems: rising prices, lack of investment, shortages in power and increasing carbon pollution. Now, there's a mix of causes: privatisation and price gouging, gas supply, a dysfunctional national energy market and four years plus of doing nothing. This feasibility study of the Snowy—fair enough, but it won't generate an extra watt of power now; in fact, when it's done it won't generate an extra watt of power. Talking to the companies, getting them to redo their marketing strategy and send letters, doesn't generate any extra power. Australia needs a plan now.

Labor is prepared to offer Australians, in the spirit of compromise, a plan. This is what we want Australians to hear. We should pull the gas export trigger now. We should end the war on renewables, and we should have a clean energy target to help keep prices down.

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The title of this MPI is 'The broken promises and failures of the government', and I thought I would talk today about the successes of the Turnbull government as a counter to that. I thought it would be a lot more compelling than the 10 minutes of attempted personal sledges and humour, which missed the mark most broadly, although there was a five-second plan at the end of it—almost. Four of the five seconds were filled with the plan.

Obviously, the most important job of a federal government is to keep its citizens safe. Since coming to office, the coalition has increased counterterrorism funding by $1.5 billion. Since September 2014 there have been 13 attempted major terrorism attacks, 74 people have been charged as a result of 31 counterterrorism operations, and 40 people have been convicted of terrorism offences. The coalition has invested more than $45 million over the past four years in programs to counter radicalisation and to remove online terrorist propaganda, more than triple that of the previous Labor government. We are talking about introducing laws where we can pull young, misguided children off planes. I have sat with the families of those affected when those laws weren't in place, and they have just been so disappointed they weren't, because they will never see their sons again.

What did we have under Labor in counterterrorism? It was a budget-cutting item. They cut 700 staff and $735 million from Customs over their six years. There was embarrassment for the member for Blaxland, who was the minister at the time, when the biggest ever catch of amphetamines was found in Regents Park in his electorate under his watch. Labor cut staff from Australia's federal law enforcement and border protection agencies, and under Labor we had record low investment in security of Australian citizens.

The second most important job of the federal government is to protect our borders. The Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, each time he stands at this box, talks about the fact that the boats have stopped, and they are still stopped. Kids are out of detention. Seventeen detention centres are closed. There have been citizenship changes and 457 visa changes to protect the jobs of Australians.

Then you get to the economy, my favourite topic, which was completely neglected by the Leader of the Opposition. There were personal tax cuts delivered, and 500,000 middle income earners benefited from them.

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What are you doing with your tax cut?

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There have been company tax cuts delivered that drive investment, profitability and employment. The member asked: what are we doing with our tax cuts? What are businesses doing with their tax cuts? My family, I would suggest, are doing what every business in this country is doing: reinvesting in their business, growing their business and employing more Australians. I will get to the results of it at the end. Thank you for asking.

You have free trade agreements. The Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources stood at the dispatch box today. There is a 39 per cent increase in the agricultural sector over the past five years. We have ChAFTA, the Japan-Australia Free Trade Agreement, the Korean free trade agreement and updating of the Singapore free trade agreement, and you have results like this: chilled and frozen beef exports were $670 million in calendar year 2016, up fourfold from 2012—300 per cent. Sheepmeat exports were $240 million in calendar year 2016, more than double—100 per cent above—those of four years ago. Grape exports were $102 million, a sixfold increase. These are the sorts of results we are having at the back end: businesses growing their profitability and yet again employing more people.

Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Employing more Australians.

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Employing more Australians, as the member for Boothby knows in her electorate.

Then you have the ABCC—the Australian Building and Construction Commission—and the registered organisation and corrupting benefits legislation, making sure that the rule of law is in Australian workplaces and that unions operate with the same responsibility as company directors have and that, if payments are made to union officials, there is vision and transparency. Why? Because members pay their fees in good faith. They expect that their union leadership is representing them in good faith. If there are payments being received and they don't know about them, and they are going to outside organisations like GetUp! that are then campaigning against coalmines and coal workers' jobs, I don't think that is in good faith.

What are the Turnbull government doing for small business? There are tax cuts, as I've mentioned, and the instant asset write-off. We're working on competition reform. Again, those opposite are not in favour of competition reform. Why? Because it doesn't suit big business. And what's the relationship? It's big business and big unions in bed together, robbing low-paid workers. They do it through EBAs, and they're trying to do it through competition reform.

We've lifted Labor's frozen Medicare rebate.

There is defence spending reform—again, a favourite budget item of those opposite through the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd years. They cut it by 10 per cent, or $5.5 billion. It got to the lowest amount since 1938. We had not one ship built in the six years on their watch. We have announced a massive rollout, $200 billion worth, and there will be jobs galore in states like South Australia, Western Australia, Queensland and New South Wales, as the supply chains that we need through the procurement lever that we use in government are backfilled, engaging with businesses from SMEs to large businesses. Primes are motivated to engage with Australian SMEs. Why? Again, it's because of profitability increases. Growth comes, and then more jobs.

There is $75 billion, as announced in the budget, on infrastructure spending; the country needs it.

There are child care reforms starting next July. There is education reform, with Gonski 2.0. Again, you heard it in question time: there were 27 different agreements in the lead-up to the last election, with Labor running around the country offering different people different deals. Why? So they could have a political win. There was no structure, no thought in it, other than political expediency. That has been cleaned up by the minister for education.

Those opposite came up with the idea—their idea; I give them full credit for it—of the NDIS, and there was bipartisan support. It is hard to budget what these things will cost in the longer term. These things grow. Forecasts are more inaccurate the longer they go. There have been funding shortfalls that have come on our watch. But, in our commitment to that initiative, we have found ways that we can fix those funding shortfalls.

Just today, the Turnbull government delivered the latest addition to No Jab, No Pay—there are 210,000 kids in stage 1 of this—to insist that parents vaccinate their kids for the safety of their children and the other children that they interact with, be it at child care or at school.

Media reforms were announced, passing late last night—long-needed reforms of laws that came into effect before there was the internet, and here they are.

What do you get at the end of all that? You get the economic statistics that the Treasurer announced today. You are talking about 800,000 jobs that have been created in the last five years—250,000 in the last 12 months. You are talking about 11 months of continuous job growth. And, of those 250,000 jobs, 80 per cent are full-time, arresting the trend that has unfolded historically, driven through the GFC, of the casualisation and underemployment problem in this country. You've got—

Nicolle Flint (Boothby, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Greater business confidence.

Craig Laundy (Reid, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Industry, Innovation and Science) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Exactly! Why have you got that? In 11 of the last 13 months, there has been an increase in full-time jobs, the greatest stretch we have had in that statistic in the past 23 years. Why have you got it? Because you've got a government that believes in business and its right to profit so that it can employ more people and so jobs will grow. What do you have opposite? You have a tax-and-spend mentality. We've seen it before. It doesn't work. For the Leader of the Opposition to come in here and attempt personal sledges and humour, and completely ignore the economy is the latest example of how out of touch he is.

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

It is a great thing for me that I've had the opportunity to speak today. I had hoped to speak earlier today during the motion that was moved by the Minister for the Environment and Energy but, sadly and kind of bizarrely, the government gagged its own urgency motion that was supposed to be criticising Labor. It was all going so well that they actually had to cut the debate short! If the Minister for the Environment and Energy had been in here, I would've advised him to rethink those great ideas he had after his third Tia Maria and milk after dinner, because what seems like a great idea at 11 o'clock at night after a few Tia Marias doesn't always bear examination first thing in the morning.

I'm glad I have the opportunity to speak now, having been thrown out a little earlier, because I really do want to talk about the broken promises and failures of the Turnbull government. I have a little confession to make: even I thought things would get better with the member for Wentworth in charge. You look at member for Warringah, the Neanderthal policies, the name-calling, the boorish negativity and you think, 'Oh God; anything has to be better than this, right?' We all thought that. We thought of 'leather jacket, ABC-loving, Q&A Malcolm', who was a supporter of climate change, marriage equality and who was doing something on the republic. We thought, 'This guy has to be better than the member for Warringah.' Oh my goodness, haven't we been disappointed! Because every single one the reasons that people thought the member for Wentworth would have to be better than the member for Warringah, he's given up on, walked away from, left behind and discarded—every single one. In 2012 he said:

I am always careful that the political positions I take are consistent with good policy. I would not want to be prime minister of Australia at any price—

No, not at any price, but we know the price: it was $1.7 million. He was very critical of the three-word-slogans of the member for Warringah. He's certainly had a productivity improvement; he has two-word slogans. He's 33 per cent more effective than the member for Warringah. He's gone from three-word slogans to 'jobs and growth', 'engineering and economics' and, my personal favourite, 'continuity and change'. That went so well!

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

'Jobs and growth' is three; shall we help you to count?

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

No, he did it with a little gesture, a little upsilon—

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Ampersand.

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

Yes, ampersand is the one. Again, he delivered on that. Continuity and change is the one he has delivered, because he changed everything he believed in to deliver continuity with the policies of the member for Warringah. The Prime Minister said:

I will not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am.

That went well! In 2009 he wrote:

Many Liberals are rightly dismayed that on this vital issue of climate change we are not simply without a policy, without any prospect of having a credible policy but we are now without integrity. We have given our opponents the irrefutable, undeniable evidence that we cannot be trusted.

They're in their fifth year of government and they still don't have a policy. He continues to refuse to pull the gas trigger to keep more Australian gas in Australia. He continues to refuse to provide the certainty that would see more investment in renewables and storage. We know that, despite getting the cleverest person in Australia, Professor Finkel, to write a draft report, which said we had to do an emissions intensity scheme, the government said 'no, we can't really cope with that'. Professor Finkel says 'alright, I'll give you the second best thing: a clean energy target'. Despite everyone on this side of the House and most of the people on that side being prepared to compromise and work with them on that, and the same in the Senate, this little group of half-a-dozen or 10 people up here get to hold this whole parliament and this whole country to ransom, because the man who sits there isn't brave enough to stand up to them on climate change, on marriage equality, on the republic, on proper funding for the ABC. He's given that to One Nation as a trade-off for their support. (Time expired)

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I do greatly appreciate the compliment of being pointed to as one of the people that's running the country. I feel very privileged. I hope the people in the electorate of Mallee realise just how powerful this area of the parliament is. She pointed over in our direction, I think. I thought Ian was included there. We are certainly very, very powerful!

I want to just talk to the class of 2016 because there are some interesting people there. In the class of 2016, you're learning from the best. But when you're in opposition—for the class of 2016—you have to be an alternate government. We are in our fifth year. There is not one policy that I have heard this afternoon that says to the Australian people that you're an alternate government. Do the work. Now's the time to do the work, to prove to the Australian people that, if they vote for you, this is what you'll do. But you're not doing the work. You're sledging. Come on! This is about an alternate government, and all you can do is sledge instead of outlaying exactly what you're going to do.

In contrast—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind members who are out of their place that they are being disorderly.

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

there are some people in this parliament who are doing the work. I want to run you through some of the work that we're doing. Essentially, you've got to create the economy that rewards endeavour and that rewards those who take risk. That's the economy that we're doing. I've got a little message for the people on the other side: you can't build the society you want unless—

Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Look out; it's a message.

Andrew Broad (Mallee, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, so listen to this, class of 2016. You're all ears! You can't do the things you want to do unless you've got the economy to pay for it. Do you know how you get the economy to pay for it? You encourage those who get up earlier in the morning and go to work. You encourage those who take a little bit of risk, and they've got to do a little bit better than others. We understand how to reward those who have a go.

I want to say that the people in my patch have benefited greatly from the free trade agreement. There's something we did: free trade agreements. Then, when you produce something, instead of getting $20 for it, you get $60 for it. That means more money. Do you know what that means? It means you might put on an apprentice. That apprentice might have a job, so you have a job. And that apprentice might save up and buy a ute. That means a car that's sold.

I want to tell you: this is how an economy runs. You start with maximising—Mr Shadow Treasurer, you're going to learn something. You start with maximising everything you produce. The next step though, of course, is that, when you create a free trade agreement, you get extra products. You've got to be able to get them to the market. You've got to be able to get your products to the market. Are you listening, class of 2016? So what you do is that you build a railway line. We've got table grapes; we've got stone fruit; we've got everything you could ever produce in the Mallee. How does it get to the market? On a railway line. Who's building the railway line?

A government member: We are!

We are! We're building a big railway line. But this railway, at $240 million, is a big railway line with five trains a week, all full of great products produced in the Mallee. This is the sort of thing.

You know that, when you build the economy, then you've got an opportunity to look after those who you want to invest in. Who do we want to invest in? We want to invest in our children. Who has developed and delivered school funding for our children? I think it was our side. I heard a lot of talk on that side, but who delivered it? It's our side. Do you know that every school, and there are 119 schools in the electorate of Mallee, gets more? Every one of them gets more.

What we're hearing here is that I'm starting to lay out some of the fundamentals of running an economy. But all we've got from the other side continues to be sledging, not an alternate government, people of Australia. What I want to see from the class of 2016 are ideas, people! You're fresh; you're new. But do I hear ideas? I don't hear ideas. All we've got here this afternoon is a whole combination of talking about how the government hasn't delivered and how the government hasn't done that. But what are you going to do? Nothing! There is not one new idea amongst the class of 2016. You've learnt how to play the game. You've learned how to get yourselves thrown out of question time. But, if you want to be the alternate government, you need to come up with some alternate ideas to take to the Australian people to deliver better outcomes for everyday Australians.

Honourable members interjecting—

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! I realise it is Thursday afternoon, but the excitement is getting a little bit over the top.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Four years ago a Prime Minister was elected, and that Prime Minister promised an adrenaline rush to the economy on the government's election. He promised a return to budget surplus. That Prime Minister said that the budget would be fixed just by their very election. He said that the Liberal Party were like a fire truck turning up at an emergency. Two years later—two years ago today—that Prime Minister had to be cut down from office by his own side. What was the rationale for getting rid of that Prime Minister? A lack of economic leadership—that's what we were told by his friends, let alone what we thought of his performance as Prime Minister.

That new Prime Minister promised new economic leadership, fixing up the mistakes of his predecessor, the member for Warringah. What have we seen since then? We've seen the deficit for the last financial year in this year's budget more than triple since their first budget, and we've seen the deficit for this financial year in the budget blow out by more than 10 times what it was projected to be in their first budget. Debt has crashed through the half-a-trillion-dollar mark. I don't know if that's new economic leadership, but it's not the economic leadership the Australian people were looking for from that political party.

We were also promised, consistently, that they were a party of low tax. 'This is the party of low tax'—we still hear it today. We heard it from the member for Reid—not from the member for Mallee, because we didn't hear anything of substance from him. At least we heard the member for Reid say that they're a party of low tax. They are the party that introduced $20 billion worth of tax rises in the budget this year. What we did hear from the member for Mallee was: 'You've got to put out alternative policies. You've got to put your ideas forward to the Australian people.'

An opposition member: He's an ideas man.

Yes. I don't remember the $20 billion worth of tax rises being put forward by those members opposite before the election. They were announced after the election. But of course what the government believe in is different tax, not lower tax—different tax, taxing different people. They have legislation before the parliament, as part of that $20 billion worth of tax rises, to tax every Australian earning more than $21,000. That's their policy. That's their new economic leadership. In fact, the Treasurer's own budget papers show that the Liberals will have increased taxes for every Australian person—every man, woman and child—by $1,906. That is what a low-tax party apparently delivers. I'd hate to see what they would do if they had confessed that they were a high-tax party.

We are seeing tax to GDP go up every year on this Treasurer's watch and under the government's tutelage, and they dare to lecture us. They dare to lecture us—because they actually believe in tax rises. They believe in increasing the tax on every Australian earning more than $21,000. Well, $21,000 a year is not very much money. It's particularly not very much money when you have wages going backwards and when people are having their penalty rates cut. And what's the government's answer? Cut the penalty rates and increase their tax. That's what the government deliver. I don't remember that being promised at any election either. I don't remember hearing about those sorts of policies in 2013 or 2016.

Then we have the issue of the day: the impact on the Australian people and on Australian business of this government's complete lack of control of energy policy. We see this government lurch from one bad idea to the other. We're now told the answer to the energy crisis which is engulfing us today is to keep a 50-year-old coal-fired power station open in five years time. That's what we are told is the answer. AGL and energy companies are meant to make investment decisions when this government can't even deliver them a coherent policy framework in which they will make those investment decisions.

But it's all okay, because the Minister for the Environment and Energy tells us prices are down. The minister for energy's answers are like a Coles ad. 'Down, down,' he says. 'Prices are down,' he tells the House. He tells the Australian people: 'It's all okay. Mission accomplished. It's all good.' Well, the people of Sydney find this a considerable surprise. But we don't, because we know how out of touch this government is, led by the most out-of-touch Prime Minister in living memory. It's permeated down to the cabinet now, to the minister for energy, who says we have no crisis. 'What crisis?' he says. 'Prices are down,' he tells the Australian people. It takes more than the Frydenberg declaration to bring prices down. (Time expired)

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, I like 'the Frydenberg declaration'! I also like good MPIs, but this is a bad MPI. This motion is to MPIs what an organic soya tofu is to dessert. Labor, you have ruined my favourite meal of dinner. Bad Labor! So what we've got today—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I'm as confused by your energy policy as you are. I've got to say that, the last time the member for McMahon and I were getting lectured, it was by Yanis Varoufakis. I had the decency to argue with the guy. Clearly the member for McMahon took him seriously. You're not a serious economist in the Labor Party side until you've bankrupted at least one country and potentially a continent!

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We all had better hair then!

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We all had better hair. That's quite true, member for McMahon.

This MPI is coming from a party that gave us the pink batts and the school halls. It never gets old, Member for McMahon. Don't think we'll be forgetting about that soon. They cut defence spending and lost control of our borders. Twelve hundred people died at sea. Ten thousand children were in detention. And there were all the unfunded programs that they created. And now they've come up with diversions about changing the date on which we celebrate Australia Day. But they have come up with one job program. The job program they've come up with is one for engravers for all those statues that need to be rewritten around Australia!

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Who proposed that? Is that the best you've got?

Jason Falinski (Mackellar, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, I've got much better, but you'd have to listen, and you're not. 'When all that fails, we just make it up. That's what we do.' I can just see the tactics committee. 'What can we say today? I know what. We'll say that electricity prices in Sydney have gone up by $1,000 per household since the Liberals were in power.' It then turns out that, when we go off to the AER and say: 'What's actually happened here? Labor is telling us your figures are wrong,' the AER comes back and says, 'Some prices have gone up by a dollar and a lot went down by a few hundred dollars.' Why was that?

Of course, the people of New South Wales got an early taste of what Labor policymaking looks like when you set it free on energy markets. Under the Carr government, under Eddie Obeid, under Ian Macdonald—the man whose every friend had to have a coalmine—and, let's not forget, Joe Tripodi, we ended up with Sydney electricity prices per household going up 300 per cent. By the time we got into government, there was only one way for them to go down, member for McMahon, and that was the road of the coals. These guys think they understand policy and they seriously think the Australian people will trust them with fixing energy. Any single person who lives in New South Wales saw what the Labor Party did in government.

In government we've cut taxes, we've signed free trade agreements, we've reduced regulation and we've reduced debt. Debt would have been more than double what it is now under us if we'd left you there. And we funded Gonski and NDIS. You guys couldn't do any of that. We've even lifted your Medicare levy freeze. We are the party of hope. You blokes are the party of nope.

And all of this has resulted in us creating 800,000 jobs since we got elected. On the very day that we can point to 800,000 jobs being created under this government, Labor decides to pull on this MPI. That's why it is the organic soya tofu dessert of the dinner party. Under the Turnbull government, almost 500,000 jobs have been created. We have seen 11 consecutive months of jobs being created. We have not seen a run that long in 23 years. This is the momentum that this government is building, and you guys should get out of the way and just say, 'Thank you'.

Mark Butler (Port Adelaide, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Environment, Climate Change and Water) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is contributions like that that exemplify how long a sitting fortnight can be. That was just extraordinary! This MPI is a particular matter of public importance because it is two years ago today, as we said in question time, that the member for Wentworth defenestrated the member for Warringah on the promise of so much—so much of substance. But I think the thing that the now Prime Minister promised the Australian people wasn't so much specific policy, it was that there would be a change in the nature of politics. Constituents of our side of parliament as well, I'm sure, as that side of parliament felt a sense of relief that there had been a change. They felt that the member for Wentworth was promising to turn a new page in Australian politics, to bring politics back to the centre and to talk intelligently to the Australian people instead of talking to them in three-word slogans. When he made a promise, they thought he would keep the promise, because they remembered that in 2009 this was a fellow willing to lose his job as the Leader of the Opposition for a principle: standing up for effective action on climate change.

If there is one promise that the Australian people most associate with the member for Wentworth, now the Prime Minister, it is the promise he made in 2009 that, 'I will not lead a party that is not as committed to effective action on climate change as I am'. Of all the disappointments from this Prime Minister, of all the broken promises, it is that one that gets raised with this side of the House most often by the Australian people. It exemplifies, most starkly, the change in this man and the shrinking in the public profile of what the Australian people thought they had in the member for Wentworth. There are any number of policies around climate change that I could raise to exemplify that point, but it is particularly in energy policy that this Prime Minister has entirely subordinated his power as Prime Minister to the member for Warringah. It is so clear that the member for Warringah in different areas of policy, but most notably in this one, exercises an effective veto over this government. Two years ago they changed the Prime Minister, but the same bloke still controls the power.

There are any number of aspects to this failure on energy policy. This country has been plunged into a deep energy crisis by this government. Prices are skyrocketing. Reliability is plummeting. The Energy Market Operator has warned that two-thirds of the country over coming summers will be at risk of blackouts. Over this government's time in power, seven coal-fired power stations have been closed. That is the amount of power equivalent to the demand from six million households. Yesterday, the Prime Minister boasted, 'Well, during the last decade, 2,900 megawatts of dispatchable gas-fired generation has been added.' He didn't add that every single one of those megawatts was added to the system under the last Labor government. When they saw that the member for Warringah was going to wreck the country's climate and energy policies, investment certainty fell off a cliff in this country. For that reason, we have not seen a single megawatt of dispatchable power added to the National Electricity Market in more than four years of this government. Four-thousand megawatts have gone out of the system under them. Not a single megawatt of dispatchable power has been added to the system by this government.

And this government's got a blueprint. They've got a pathway out of this: a report commissioned by this government from their own chief scientist, supported by the states and supported by industry. We've said that we'll play a constructive role in negotiating around this report. But the member for Warringah still holds the whip hand. Two years on, you still know who controls this government. It's not the bloke who sits in this chair; it's the one who comes in late to question time every day and sits up there: the member for Warringah. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Trevor Evans (Brisbane, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Well, we know what the member for Port Adelaide would offer the people of Australia if he ever became the energy minister of the Commonwealth: hiccups, you can bank on; confessions, you can bank on; a national electricity market modelled on that great experiment we're seeing underway in South Australia.

When I read the text of today's matter of public importance, I thought at first there might have been a spelling mistake in it. I thought they might have misspelled the name 'Queensland', or maybe the name 'Palaszczuk', and that what they actually wanted to talk about today was that Queensland Labor government—approaching a state election in a few weeks time or months time, possibly—failing to achieve anything at all in their three years in office. But, from listening to the opposition leader and those opposite, I have now come to the realisation that the opposition leader really wanted to set out his plan. I think 'parallel universe' was the phrase that I heard him use a couple of times in his speech—a parallel universe, where he wishes that all of those misleading lines he spouted were true, and where his Mediscare-type lines and his policy scares were somehow true.

No-one can put it better than the Prime Minister did just a few hours ago in this very place. He called out how crazy it is for this opposition to be moving this motion today—this motion about delivery of competent governance—at the same time as we've had such positive economic news. We've just had the numbers: 54,000 Australian jobs were created this month, 40,000 of them full-time. We are delivering when it comes to jobs and growth. I've got the numbers right here in front of me. Since the coalition government was elected in 2013, over 800,000 jobs have been created. Since Malcolm Turnbull became the Prime Minister of Australia, almost 500,000 jobs have been created. We've now seen 11 consecutive months of job creation. We've not seen a longer run of job creation in 23 years, and it shows the momentum that's currently building in Australia's labour market. Over the past six months, the first six months of this year, we've seen over a quarter of a million jobs created. That's the strongest six-month gain that we've seen in years and years—almost two decades. Eighty per cent of those jobs have been full time. We're seeing not only more jobs but also more Australians engaging in the labour market. So not only are we seeing the unemployment rate coming down; we're seeing the participation rate going up. In particular, I want to call out the female participation rate in Australia, which is now its highest on record. Today's numbers also show amazing figures for youth employment, because—while there's still a lot more to do, obviously—over the past six months, over 60,000 young Australians gained employment. That's the strongest gain in youth employment in this country since the GFC. These are amazing economic statistics that we're seeing. They are record numbers, and they're the sorts of numbers that we hope to see, as a result of our enterprise tax plan and our economic plan as we roll it out, in the better days ahead that we've been working so hard to achieve for all Australians. They're the sorts of results that we will continue to see as we further implement our economic plan.

In the 14 months since I was elected as part of this government as a new MP, we've delivered personal income tax cuts; we've delivered company tax cuts for small and medium businesses; we've delivered childcare reforms; we've unfrozen Labor's freeze on the Medicare rebate; and we've boosted schools funding and delivered the real Gonski. We've delivered massive free trade agreements that are unlocking huge potential for Australia in this region. Obviously, media reform today is just the latest example of this government getting on with the job and delivering. There's a litany—a long list—of other achievements there.

I did want to very quickly say that in Brisbane I'm working really hard to deliver on my election commitments as well. This week, constituents right around Brisbane will have received my first annual report, reporting on my work and my achievements in my first year of office. The people of Brisbane right now are seeing work happening on the Bruce Highway, on the M1, on the Inner City Bypass and on Kingsford Smith Drive. I had the Prime Minister in town late last year, when we delivered $10 million of extra funding to get the early planning work right for great future projects like the Cross River Rail and Brisbane's Metro project.

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

I think the member for Ballarat is going to miss it by two minutes, so I'll make the contribution. Today we have seen the transformation of a Prime Minister to the point where there is, in fact, nothing left. I remember when we had the very first couple of weeks of parliament after the 2013 election. The member for Warringah came in here with a clever little catchphrase—a name-calling exercise that he would engage in—for the Leader of the Opposition. This week we saw almost exactly the same game—almost exactly the same playbook of having a play on someone's name.

To think that this is the Prime Minister who said he was going to bring a more civilised debate. This is the Prime Minister who said he would be able to provide a more intelligent debate than the member for Warringah. Today and this whole week, we've seen it has actually become verbatim the exact same template. The economic policy is the same. The marriage equality policy is the same. The rhetoric is the same. Who would have thought the climate policy would also end up being exactly the same? Who would have thought that that leader who, years ago, crossed the floor to vote for Labor's energy policies would now stand there as Prime Minister, ridiculing Labor's energy policies? He's not just ridiculing Labor's policies now, but the exact policies that he had voted for.

This party has become so driven with chaos that they are in a situation where to do something about energy prices there are two actions they can take right now: they can act on the gas trigger, and they can act on a clean energy target. But they can't act on the gas trigger because we don't know if the Deputy Prime Minister is lawfully here, and they can't act on a clean energy target because the member for Warringah says they're not allowed to. He says they're not allowed to.

After the Finkel report came out, the leader of the government, the Prime Minister, gave all the reasons he thought the clean energy target was a good idea. He would go out there, backing it in, giving arguments as to why the clean energy target was the right way forward and the right solution. Then, on Tuesday, in one party room, the member for Warringah utters one sentence. Now, when we ask the Prime Minister, 'Does he support a clean energy target—yes or no?' he doesn't answer the question because he's no longer sure. He doesn't know what he will be told to believe. What he does know is that, whatever he's told to believe, he will believe it passionately. He will back it in. He will back in hard whatever he's told his beliefs are.

I was no fan of the member for Warringah. I was no fan of the member for Warringah as the previous Prime Minister, but at least we knew who we had. At least we knew who we had in that job, whereas now we've got somebody like a barrister with a brief, opening the folder and asking: 'Okay, what am I meant to argue today? What am I meant to believe today?' That's why, when they don't have any policies they can agree on, the only thing they can agree on is how much they hate the opposition. It doesn't matter what we ask, every answer is: 'This is how Labor is so bad. This is why we don't like Labor.'

It went to peak weirdness over that two-week break, when all of a sudden they decided to run this new argument that the Labor opposition was all about communism. We heard about Cuba, we heard about East Germany and we heard about the Berlin Wall. I've got to say, you've got to feel for the Russian revolutionaries. If only they knew that their whole battle was actually about reining in concessions on negative gearing. How would Castro's revolutionaries have felt if they knew that the whole struggle was actually about an extra half a per cent on the top marginal income tax rate?

.And yet these conspiracy theories are not being run by some random backbencher who they push out the door. No, these are people who used to be viewed as credible. The Minister for Finance is the one with the Berlin Wall conspiracy. The Minister for Foreign Affairs takes on the New Zealand conspiracy. And then, when they're finally asked a straight question about whether or not energy prices are going up or down in ordinary households, they claim they're going down. Well, I've got to say: go back to your electorates and run that argument. Go back to your electorates after this and ask. I remember sitting in opposition when John Howard made a similar claim— (Time expired)

Sarah Henderson (Corangamite, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's great to hear from the member for Watson, the official king of chaos on the other side. We note that there was not one word about the economy, about jobs or about national security. He talked a lot about what Labor isn't. Mr Deputy Speaker, I'll tell you one thing that Labor isn't: there are no signs of the old Labor or the principles where the old Labor would stand up for blue-collar workers, would stand up for our manufacturers and would stand up for our coalminers. Where are the great old Labor figures of Hawke, Crean, Keating, Ferguson and Combet? Those great figures are embarrassed by what this mob has become. They are embarrassed!

Let us have a look at our record. We've made record investments to keep Australia safe, by investing in our national security and policing agencies. We are delivering record jobs growth: 800,000 jobs created in the last four years, reversing Labor's stagnating performance. Over the last 12 months the economy generated 325,000 new jobs, four times the rate of jobs growth compared with Labor's last year in office. We're investing in small businesses to grow jobs and confidence: we're cutting taxes, fixing our competition laws and providing the instant asset write-off. These are things that Labor used to believe in, but now it wants to drive up taxes and penalise Australia's two million small businesses.

We're stopping the rorts and corrupt payments, and restoring the rule of law on Australian building sites. We are stopping the dirty deals between big employers and big unions, like the shoppies union—of which the member for Watson is a member. He has not been prepared to stand up against those dirty, stinking deals which have seen young workers ripped off, lose their penalty rates altogether and even be paid under the award. We've introduced the ABCC to reinstate the rule of law on building sites around this country and to stop the likes of the CFMEU acting illegally and driving up the costs of construction. What a shame that members opposite won't take a leaf out of Bob Hawke's book and get rid of the CFMEU. They do not have the guts.

We've delivered record schools funding under the real Gonski—an increase of $23.5 billion, which Labor opposed. We're putting Australian jobs first. We're fixing our visa system. We've reversed Labor's horrific border protection policy failures, which saw 1,200 people die at sea and 10,000 children put behind bars.

And look at the Leader of the Opposition's record in Victoria. He's prevailed over several infrastructure investment disasters. There was the $4 billion regional rail link, a white elephant which now leaves commuters standing room only, and has treated the people of Geelong as second-class citizens. He never had the guts to stand up to Daniel Andrews when he abandoned the East West Link, at a cost of $1.24 billion, and all of those 7,000 blue-collar jobs—those blue-collar workers—a project he previously supported. And Labor's West Gate Tunnel Project has been exposed as a sham.

But nothing takes the cake like Labor's energy policy. Our government is driving down energy prices by reserving gas, holding the electricity companies to account, building Snowy Hydro 2.0, standing up for base-load power, standing up for coalminers and standing up for the coalmining industry. The Leader of the Opposition never had the guts to stand up for manufacturing workers in the La Trobe Valley and hold Daniel Andrews to account when he forced Hazelwood to close. Labor's record is absolutely appalling. (Time expired)

Mark Coulton (Parkes, Deputy-Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for the discussion has concluded.