Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Education and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How good is integrity? A while back, a lot of people didn't know who Scott Morrison was, so when he took over as Prime Minister he tried to portray himself as the daggy dad from the shire. People are getting to know him now and they're seeing a pattern emerging—and I'm not talking about the pattern where he went into a preselection and got eight votes versus 80 and still managed to slide into the seat! I'm not talking about the pattern where he had six votes and ended up as Prime Minister, when he stabbed the previous Prime Minister in the back. No, I'm talking about the pattern where whenever there is a difficult question he avoids answering it.

First, it was on-water matters. Then it was the Canberra bubble. Then it was, 'It's just gossip'. Now, he refuses to come in here and answer about his minister's misleading of the parliament. Instead, he's prepared to mislead parliament himself about his minister's misleading of the parliament. He is not prepared to account to the Australian people, through the parliament. Instead, he sent a note—the 'dog ate my homework' note—into the parliament. It's no wonder that people are asking the Prime Minister, 'Where the bloody hell are you?' And it's no wonder that they're asking about the phone call to the police commissioner and saying, 'What the bloody hell were you thinking?'