Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. For four decades the trickle-down troika of Labor, Liberal and big business have sold off public assets with privatisation after privatisation, but with power bills up, people in more debt and jobs less secure, people are certainly feeling something trickling down on them from above—

Honourable Members:

Honourable members interjecting—

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

The member for Melbourne will resume his seat. Members on both sides will cease interjecting. I can't hear the question. The member for Melbourne will begin his question again.

Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

For four decades the trickle-down troika of Labor, Liberal and big business have sold off public assets with privatisation after privatisation, but with power bills up, people in more debt and jobs less secure, people are certainly feeling something trickling down on them from above, but it's not wealth. Prime Minister, wasn't Bernie Sanders right when he said that the electricity grid should be in public hands, because it's an essential service, and shouldn't be run for profit? Isn't it time to stand up for refugees, equality and a safe climate, by bringing a bit of Bernie to Batman and electing the Greens' Alex Bhathal?

Honourable members interjecting—

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

Just before I call the Prime Minister, could members on both sides cease interjecting while I rule on the question. Of course, as is often the case in 45 seconds, there are a number of questions there. The Prime Minister can choose to ignore the last part of the question. That was a political advertisement rather than a question.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the very alliterative member for Melbourne for his question. On the second go-through, Mr Speaker, thanks to your restoring order in the House, we were able to listen carefully to the question. I couldn't find anything in it that the Labor candidate for Batman, Ged Kearney, would disagree with! I was wondering whether the Manager of Opposition Business had dropped some speaking notes from the Labor Batman campaign. Nationalising the energy grid—I've heard Ged Kearney talk about that. It has a certain retro aspect to it. I think we've all learnt that nationalisation and state intervention of that kind has not been successful. I know that in the Greens party they hanker for the good old times—they want to get back to the USSR—but that's all over, sadly from their point of view and happily from everybody else's.

The reality is this: we see now from the member for Melbourne the perfect synthesis between the Greens party and the left of the Labor Party. We've seen it foreshadowed with the question from the member for Watson. We'll see the Labor Party moving further and further to the left—closer to the member for Melbourne—so that they can try to present themselves as a sort of Green-Labor party for the people of Batman to consider. But the reality is this: the people whose jobs the honourable member's policies would threaten, were they ever to be put in place, will see through the Greens. They'll see through the Greens right through to the Australian Labor Party, because the Australian Labor Party has now taken up this left-wing, antibusiness, anti-free-enterprise approach which is calculated, and indeed designed, to destroy thousands of jobs and thousands of opportunities. The very jobs we're creating, the honourable member's philosophy would destroy. It will be a very interesting contest in the seat of Batman, with both the honourable member's candidate and the Leader of the Opposition's candidate hurtling off to the left in pursuit of Bernie Sanders.