Matt Burnell (Spence, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022. A few years ago, the Prime Minister, the Treasurer, the Minister for Finance, the Minister for Health, the Minister for Home Affairs and the Minister for Industry, Energy and Emissions Reduction walked into a bar. He ordered a drink. As much as that is a joke, at its crux it was certainly no laughing matter. It turned our relatively young democracy into a laughing-stock in front of an international audience. That conduct turned our institutions of executive government into a laughing-stock to the public at large. It also showed just how close we as a country can get to being in the state of constitutional crisis when those entrusted with the highest offices in our land do not follow established practices or conventions.

It is indeed true that the events that caused us to need to enact this legislation occurred prior to my election to this place. It certainly has allowed me to see this through the lens of how I would have reacted as a private citizen had I, along with the rest of the public, known what the member for Cook had done in the years or months prior to last year's collection. As a member of this place and of the legislative branch of government, I, along with all members of this place, shoulder a great duty and responsibility to foster public trust in this institution. But, due to the actions of the member for Cook, we do so from a position of weakness. This begins to form the basis as to why I rise today to speak in support of the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022.

This is not formed from an explicit election commitment, as the circumstances that brought this about only come to light publicly later, through investigations conducted by our Solicitor-General Dr Stephen Donaghue KC. The advice provided to government and subsequently made public led to another review, conducted by former High Court Justice the Hon. Virginia Bell AC, into the appointment of the former Prime Minister to administer multiple departments. As a result of these thorough investigations, the facts that brought us here are thankfully quite settled and established. They ultimately revolve around the actions of the member for Cook.

The member for Cook, between 2020 and 2021, when he was Prime Minister, was secretly appointed by the Governor-General to administer multiple portfolios or departments of state. The portfolios or departments of state in question I alluded to in my opening remarks: Treasury, Finance, Home Affairs, Health and Industry, Science, Energy and Resources. It would shock nobody to know that, at the time the appointments were made, there was no cause for the ministers that were publicly listed to be replaced with an acting minister, whether it be on health grounds or any other number of reasons that could cause a minister to temporarily relinquish their powers or to be required to stand aside from exercising their powers as a minister of state.

In my research on this bill, I also took note of the explanatory memorandum to this bill. I can see that this bill's passing has no financial impact. Therefore, it would have cost the government of the member for Cook zero dollars to have safeguarded responsible government, yet the member for Cook chose secrecy instead. Secrecy was definitely the modus operandi of the previous government, but you would never have speculated that that would have been the case in such a profound way to the very machinery of how the government operated. Secrecy has its own costs, some of them intangible, such as the damage caused to the reputation of Australia's government, to our democracy. Despite these events, I feel that Australia can pride itself on its democracy, one of compulsory voting and of independent electoral commissions federally and in our states and territories. In some respects it is very robust, taking pages out of the Westminster system and out of the Washington system, but I digress, and I will soon sound like a civics teacher.

The fact that the executive sits within our parliament, the legislature, is important. It means we have the ability to access executive government, to ask questions of it and to hold it to account. Exemplifying that, this place sets aside time out of every sitting day—question time. Some may refer to it as political theatre, but it is an extremely important part of our democracy, the part that is underpinned by the principle of responsible government. A member of this place can stand up during question time and ask a question of a minister of state concerning a matter involving a policy or a function of a department the minister has the powers and functions to administer. How would a member direct a question to the right minister if some of the ministerial appointments had been made in secret, secret from the parliament, from the public and even from the members of the cabinet itself. The Solicitor-General, Stephen Donaghue KC, noted in the advice he provided to the government on this matter:

… it is impossible for the Parliament to hold Ministers to account for the administration of departments if it does not know which Ministers are responsible for which departments.

The Albanese Labor government was elected with a mandate to restore public trust in the institutions of government and in government itself. The cornerstone of this is the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, whose legislation passed through the parliament late last year. The Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022 follows the same core principles that underpinned the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, but there was no election commitment to enact this legislation. One might ask why that was. This legislation is a degree reactionary, as the catalyst for it was uncovered only after election day.

I can only begin to speculate on what would have happened if the conduct of the member for Cook had entered the public domain prior to election day. I'm sure some out there would have put on a more full-blooded defence or expressed more strongly that there was nothing to see here. I wonder whether we would have had similar comments from the member for McPherson, who called the conduct of the member for Cook unacceptable and calling for the member for Cook to resign and to leave the parliament. She then said she felt that the conduct of the member for Cook was a betrayal of the Australian people. You can't get much more unequivocal than that. Would we have had former prime minister Tony Abbott call the conduct of the member for Cook 'highly unorthodox' and say it shouldn't have happened?

The conduct of the member for Cook also received heavy, condemnation from former prime minister John Howard, although the comments were akin to: 'I don't think you should have done that.' That translates to significant criticism, when it's being levelled at its own side of politics. The member for Cook received condemnation from former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull—to be fair, he's said worse about the member for Cook, both publicly and privately. He called the actions of the member for Cook 'sinister stuff', 'secret government' and 'one of the most appalling things he has ever heard in our federal government'. You could definitely tell he was holding back, which comes as a surprise to no-one. The bill itself is rather simple in its design but, crucially, it would have prevented the situation where the member for Cook was sworn in secretly to administer several departments beyond Prime Minister and Cabinet, even without the knowledge of the ministers who served concurrently in those portfolios, meaning the member for Cook was serving as a parallel minister to a department of state—not a shadow minister but a minister in the shadows.

The bill seeks to amend the Ministers of State Act 1952. The amendments to the act would require the official secretary to the Governor-General to publish a notifiable instrument on the Federal Register of Legislation, which will advise of when the Governor-General has sworn in an executive counsellor to the Federal Executive Council or—in layman's terms—when a minister has been sworn in to administer a department of state, or when they have been directed to do so in whatever capacity that has been prescribed, or when an appointment of the nature I have just described has been revoked. This would appear to be largely uncontroversial on its face value, unlike the circumstances that required us to bring about codifying these conventions that have served us well for decades.

Throughout the time between today and when the revelations about the member for Cook's multiple ministries came to light, one of the most lamentable moments has been as a result of the defence put in place to deflect or, at times, mitigate the gravity and severity of what his actions meant to our democracy, to our system of government. However, I am, going to skip over the defence proffered by the member for Cook himself in this chamber and in the media, as many parts of it are nonsense. To say that he would have revealed the truth had someone asked him is, suffice to say, a little rich for my taste.

Putting the member for Cook's words to one side, we have seen a number of arguments being made by a member of the opposition, senior or otherwise, and by a number of sympathetic members of the commentariat. The arguments being made have been relatively similar. The main argument being made in defence, perhaps at times not directly of the member for Cook himself, is that getting to the bottom of this issue is not one that everyday voters would care about, not a bread-and-butter issue. I don't know whether these are vestiges of a defeatist attitude or one that is running a beleaguered defence of the member for Cook but this needs to be something that the average voter cares about because, if it is not now, it once was. Sometimes apathy is worse than red-hot anger, for it proves a disconnect, a certain acquiesce of this sort of conduct. It breeds comments that many of us have all heard before: politicians are all the same. We shouldn't to an extent, for this very debate, be all the same. We should want the Australian voter to view us better than what they do, regardless of how they do so at any given time. To say that the trustworthiness of the holder of the office of Prime Minister is not something that is relevant to the everyday voter is either laughable or upsetting to our profession, if it were to be true.

The other argument being put is that the line in the sand should be drawn and, as these are matters of the past, we should all move on. It is almost as if we are talking about actions taken during ancient history, as if relics from the secret ministries scandal are now held by the British Museum. But as a jolt of reality, these actions took place within the past two years, and the truth of what took place came out for public consumption roughly half a year ago. Even in the age of the 24-hour media cycle, this is reason enough to warrant investigation, to warrant the government to seek expert advice on how to rectify how it operates to prevent this from happening ever again.

As the paraphrased saying goes, we are doomed to repeat history, contemporary or otherwise, if we do not learn from it. It is not a mistake I or the Albanese Labor government are willing to make. It is my hope, and I'm sure the hopes of all members present, that this bill, when passed, will help to close one of the final loops of this sorry saga, and we can move on from this as a parliament, as a nation.

Lastly, I could note many contributions in this place on the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022 but I would like to take particular note of the brief contribution made by the member for Hume. That very succinct statement made on this bill gives me a bit of hope. It is indeed my hope that, although I did not hear full-throated support of the bill, I did hear support—a bit lukewarm, but it was supportive nevertheless. Just as with the establishment of the National Anti-Corruption Commission, the public will see a new page turned by our democratic institutions with the support of all sides of politics, particularly the two parties of government. I would encourage all members of this place to support this bill and take one further step forward to restoring public confidence in government, for, with the passage of this bill, the chapter we move on from cannot be repeated. I thank the House.

Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Our democracy is not a given. It is something that must be nurtured and maintained, and that is why I'm standing to speak on the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022 today. The Albanese government is committed to our democracy, to accountability and to integrity. It is why we have established the National Anti-Corruption Commission, and it is why we are implementing the first six recommendations of the Bell inquiry.

The Bell inquiry was an extraordinary moment in and of itself. The fact that a former High Court justice needed to investigate a former Prime Minister swearing himself into secret portfolios without notifying his colleagues, this parliament and the Australian people beggars belief. At the time, the shadow minister for home affairs said that this behaviour was unacceptable and that she felt that the Australian people had been betrayed. I detect that not only the shadow minister for home affairs but other former ministers of the former government also felt that same betrayal. I wholeheartedly agree. Never in my political career—which also includes having come from Territory parliament into federal parliament—have I heard such blatant disrespect for our democracy, for our parliament and for the Australian people. It is why it is so important that we had the censure of the member for Cook last year. The censure sent a clear message: this type of behaviour has no place in our parliament and in our democracy.

It is widely known that faith in our democracy and our system of government is under strain. I hear it all the time when I am out in my electorate. That should send shivers down the spine of every member of this place. Many people, particularly in Lingiari, believe politicians and politics in general are not working in their interests. People see politics and politicians as self-serving and as a way to protect the interests of certain individuals. This is beyond alarming, and this parliament must respond.

I am proud to stand here today and speak on ways in which the Albanese government is strengthening integrity measures in government. This bill will implement reforms to provide greater transparency for the administration of our Commonwealth departments. It will ensure that there is clarity as to who is governing our departments of state and who is sworn in to administer departments. It will address the loopholes that the member for Cook so blatantly abused. Critically, this bill will also ensure that information on the governance of our country will be available for all Australians to find, as it should be. But, most importantly, this bill, as part of a broader suite of measures, will go some way in restoring people's sense of parliament as a trusted institution. None of us can do our jobs if our communities do not trust us, and so we must do all that we can do of what is needed to safeguard our democracy. I commend this bill.

Josh Burns (Macnamara, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I wish I was pleased to rise to speak on the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022, but this is a bill we should never have had to bring to this place. This is a bill that, frankly, should have been part of a policy that every single member of this place, especially those in leadership positions, should have respected in the first place, and not created the need to bring this bill into this place. We know that coming in here, in the last government, there was a constant undermining of this great institution. I'm going to run through some of the extraordinary decisions made by the former Prime Minister in appointing himself across all the really serious major policy and departments when he was the Prime Minister.

But it's more than that. When we came into this place after the 2019 election, every single time we put forward different items for debate and when we sought to engage in a democratic way on topics and even on the government's own bills—like on the EPBC Act, like when they were trying to ram through industrial relations reform—we wanted to speak and participate in our democratic arena of the House of Representatives. And time after time the Leader of the House came in here and moved that members be no longer heard, and second reading questions on legislation were immediately put, on whether or not a bill should be considered, without debate. I remember the EPBC Act bill, where they tried to bring back the failed Tony Abbott environmental reforms. Without even allowing debate on the floor of the parliament, they tried to ram that through.

We had in the last parliament a culture of the numbers of leaders of the House they had performing in that role coming in here—there wasn't respect for this institution. There wasn't the respect to say that this and each and every member of this place deserves the right to be heard and deserves the right to represent the communities they are privileged to be here on behalf of. There was a culture of, frankly—it was almost as if the Prime Minister didn't want to be here, almost as if the former Prime Minister felt this place was beneath him and his roles. But it is not. You can tell the difference between the current Prime Minister—someone who has a deep sense of this place, someone who respects this place, someone who respects the institution we are all privileged to be part of—and the former Prime Minister, who, time after time, allowed debate to be shut down, moved that members be not heard, refused to engage in debate and engaged in a culture of undermining the importance of our house of democracy.

What are we doing in return? This bill, the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022, will ensure that the Australian people are able to access information related to the composition of the federal Executive Council, those appointed to administer certain departments of state and the high offices that those ministers of state hold.

When we came into government, as you know, Deputy Speaker Georganas, we sought to try and rebuild trust with the Australian people. Democracy is important to us. Australian people believing in this institution is important to us. We on this side of the House wanted to rebuild a bit of trust and show the Australian people that we care about this place. This place matters. This institution needs to be protected by us as representatives of this place. We can't be coming in here with a culture of secrecy, a culture of shutting down debate and a culture of undermining and not respecting this institution.

Given all of that, it is hardly surprising that we uncovered the former Prime Minister in the most extraordinary of circumstances, having revealed not by him but for him, of the extraordinary power grab that he undertook in this place and as the Prime Minister of our country. We all knew that the member for Cook was the Prime Minister. It did grate a little bit, occasionally, but we all knew it—we all knew that the member for Cook was the Prime Minister. We had no idea that the member for Cook had taken carriage of five other portfolios.

I remember when the early days of COVID arrived—and there was not only a sense of urgency but also a sense of political unity—we had discussions as a federal Labor Party caucus about our approach. The main agreement we had was that we were going to work with the government to try to support the Australian people getting through these difficult times. That meant facilitating a special sitting of parliament, where we would come into this place and pass extraordinary measures that enabled Australians to isolate safely at home, to be able to have connections to their workplace and the JobKeeper and JobSeeker policies alike. There was goodwill.

If you were really desperate to justify the fact that the Prime Minister wanted to appoint himself as the minister for health, maybe a global pandemic is a justification for that as well, just in case—you never know what will happen, and there was a lot of uncertainty. That doesn't excuse the fact that the Prime Minister refused to tell anyone about it, that the Prime Minister didn't come into this place and say, 'Just to be clear, in case of an emergency, I have made myself as well the minister for health and, therefore, it is only as a contingency, just to ensure that there are people looking after the Australian people at all times.' I don't think that would have been necessary. I think that there are plenty of different ways in which the executive government can rearrange themselves and there are extraordinary circumstances to guide extraordinary times. But the Prime Minister didn't do that.

Just like that culture of shutting down debate, just like that culture of trying to ram through bills without giving members a chance to speak, the Prime Minister appointed himself to two different portfolios in March 2020 and didn't tell anyone. He didn't tell the Minister for Finance, the now head of the OECD, Mathias Cormann, that on 30 March 2020 the Prime Minister took the finance portfolio for himself. It was extraordinary times in March 2020.

We came in here working with the government in order to try and protect the Australian people and ensure that everything in this place was there to protect their interests, their livelihoods and their lives. What did the Prime Minister then do? He appointed himself the Minister for Finance but did not even tell his own finance minister. It is extraordinary that the Prime Minister had not a shred of respect for the then finance minister, not enough to say, 'By the way, mate, these are extraordinary times and I have just appointed myself, in case there is anything that you can't do, heaven forbid.'

It gets worse. He then appointed himself, on 15 April 2021, as the Minister for Industry, Science, Energy and Resources, because the then minister for resources was refusing to block the PEP-11 project off the coast of New South Wales. We all know where the Labor Party has stood and the advocacy on PEP-11 has been, and I'm not here to re-prosecute that old argument. But what this shows is that the former Prime Minister understood that he could take on specific and extra portfolios. He understood that, by him taking on those portfolios, he could use his responsibilities against the wishes of the current ministers who were sworn in under those portfolio responsibilities. What the former Prime Minister was doing was secretly acquiring powers to be used against his own cabinet ministers. If you are secretly acquiring powers to use against cabinet ministers, surely letting someone know would be a pretty good idea? Surely you should have the decency to let the Australian people know about your intentional power grab against your own ministers and it should be made public? But, of course, that didn't happen.

Then there was more. On 6 May 2021, long after those early days of the pandemic, the then Prime Minister decided to appoint himself as the Treasurer of Australia as well as the Minister for Home Affairs. Both of those portfolios have extraordinary powers. Both the Minister for Home Affairs and the Treasurer of Australia are senior portfolio positions. We had a prime minister who was intentionally acquiring portfolios and did not tell the then Treasurer, Josh Frydenberg, nor did he tell the former Minister for Home Affairs.

This place matters, and the way in which executive government works matters. There must be an executive member in the chair at the dispatch box at all times because the executive is accountable to this place. The executive that runs our country is accountable to this building and to the Australian people when parliament is functioning. But the then Prime Minister not only didn't tell his colleagues or the Australian people that he was acquiring power to use against his colleagues; he was telling journalists! The former prime minister refused to come into this place or go on any national platform that he would have been given and tell people that he had actually acquired five different portfolios. But he knew this information was of interest, which is why he told two journalists, Mr Chambers and Mr Benson, for their book called Plagued. So the former prime minister was aware enough that he had acquired portfolios to use against his own cabinet colleagues, he was aware that the information was of enough interest that he wanted to tell journalists, but he didn't have the decency to say it in this place, he didn't have the decency to tell his own colleagues who were also on the executive serving under him and, worst of all, he didn't have the decency to tell the Australian people.

I don't know about you, but I like to think that every member of this place actually cares about the institution that we are privileged to represent in such that when we leave this place we can hold our heads high and say we served in this great institution to the best of our ability, because the Australian people deserve nothing less, and that we believe in this house of democracy, we believe in the House of Representatives and we believe that coming in here and serving our constituencies is a worthwhile profession. We're not in it for ourselves; we are in it to try to do something for our country. It is a great thing, and I know that people across all sides of politics believe in that. That is not something that is only to do with the Labor Party. Of course it's not. But coming with that is a respect for this place, and I hope the conservatives will join us in supporting this bill and saying that the undemocratic, secretive power grabs of the former prime minister, coming in this place and abusing the very institution that we are all proud to be a part of, should absolutely never happen again. I commend this bill to the House.

Andrew Charlton (Parramatta, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to support the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022. Last year's federal election was nothing short of a wake-up call for Australia's elected representatives—the largest crossbench in history, an all-time low in our faith in democracy and the political whiplash from a generation of Australians who grew up in a decade of dishonesty in our parliament. I'm a firm believer in our Australian democracy and a firm believer that this House is capable of generational change for the better. I believe that change for a better future can start here and that change for the better starts with us.

I've spoken before about the dangerous state of our democracy—the crisis of confidence that we are in, a generation of the disillusioned, a seismic structural shift in Australian politics. Since I last spoke on this, the 2022 Australian Election Study has been released. After every election, the Australian National University's Australian Election Study collects data from thousands of voters right across Australia, and it's been doing that since 1987. It looks at long-term trends across years and decades and lifts the lid on deep, long-running issues that aren't reflected in fortnightly polling.

Until 2019, its findings on public faith in our democracy were not only disappointing but distressing. Satisfaction with Australian democracy was on a precipitous decline. In 2007, 86 per cent of Australians said they were satisfied with our democracy. In 2010, that fell to 72 per cent. In 2016, it fell again, to 60 per cent. In 2019, it fell again, to 59 per cent. By that point, more than a third of Australians were not satisfied with our democracy. The study also asked if people in government can be trusted. Again, the statistics show a strong decline. In 2007, 43 per cent of Australians said that politicians could be trusted. By 2010, it had fallen to 37 per cent. At the next election, it was 34 per cent. Then it was 26 per cent, and, in 2019, it was 25 per cent. Only 25 per cent of Australians said their politicians could be trusted. Three in four people didn't think their politicians could be trusted.

In May last year we had the first signs of a change to these statistics. With the release of the 2022 study, these trends began to change for the first time since 2007. Satisfaction with our democracy rose from a dangerously low 59 per cent to 70 per cent between 2019 and 2022. Mistrust in government actually went down, not up, for the first time. In 2022, the percentage of respondents who felt that the people in government only look after themselves dropped from an all-time high of 75 per cent in 2019 to 70 per cent in 2022. It's not a big drop, but it is moving in the right direction.

Clearly we have a long way to go before faith in our democracy is restored, but this is the first time in a long time that faith in our democracy has begun to rise. Support for reforms to strengthen our democracy is partly behind this reversal. The 2022 Australian Election Study also reported that 92 per cent of respondents either strongly supported or supported a national anticorruption body. Last year, we delivered on this very promise. This is just a first step on a long pathway towards restoring long-term faith in our democracy. We need to make sure this parliament is transparent, accountable and reliable. That is our responsibility. That is our mandate. That is our job. And that is exactly what this bill brings to the table.

Fighting for our democracy takes not just the courage to speak out but the courage to act. Since taking government, the Albanese government has done just that. In eight months, we have established the National Anti-Corruption Commission, we have pushed for more representation for our First Nations people with a Voice to Parliament and now we are legislating safeguards against the undermining of the principles of responsible government that took place during the Morrison government.

The amendments put forward today are the result of an independent inquiry into the conduct of the member for Cook during his time as Prime Minister. Between March 2020 and May 2021, as the country grappled with an ongoing public health crisis, the member for Cook appointed himself to no fewer than five additional portfolios. He became the minister for health; he became the minister for finance; he became the minister for industry, science, energy and resources; he became the Treasurer; and he became the minister for home affairs. An independent inquiry led by former High Court Justice the Hon. Virginia Bell AC found that the fundamental principles of responsible government had been undermined by these actions.

I reject the accusation that this was all the result of a political witch-hunt. Frankly, I find it concerning that the opposition would continue to undermine independent, responsible procedures of government by labelling the Bell inquiry 'a political witch-hunt'. Let's get the facts clear. This was an independent inquiry. It was not about the politics; it was about why this happened, how this happened and how we can prevent it from happening again in the future.

I commend the Albanese Labor government on taking the inquiry's recommendations forward. The Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022 forms one part of the government's response to Ms Bell's recommendations. Specifically, this bill puts an end to secret ministries and to the practice of dishonesty. It marks the start of a new era and a new approach to government—one defined by transparency, accountability and a commitment to democracy.

In sum, this bill demonstrates that the government is delivering on its promise to restore the Australian people's confidence in our federal system of government and to rebuild integrity in public sector institutions, processes and officials. This bill will implement reforms to provide for greater transparency and accountability in Commonwealth administration. The purpose of this bill is to implement the first of the six recommendations from the Bell inquiry, and it follows the steps the government has already taken to establish a powerful, transparent and independent National Anti-Corruption Commission. This government is committed to restoring faith in our democracy, to bring back integrity and accountability. Australians deserve to know who those appointed to be their ministers are, who their executive are and what offices they hold. Our democracy is precious, and it's our responsibility to protect it.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

BRIAN MITCHELL () (): I will make a short contribution, I hope, on the Ministers of State Amendment Bill 2022. The flame of democracy is a fragile thing. We often focus on threats from without, but the threats from within can be just as real and just as damaging. The tension between our parliament and our executive is real and it's deliberate. We must protect our democracy, and the actions of the member for Cook, the former Prime Minister, served to undermine that protection. It's the responsibility of every member here and, indeed, of every senator in the other place to nurture the flame of democracy, not to seek to snuff it out—not to seek to bulldoze it, if I can use that term.

Now, I do recognise that some regard parliamentary democracy as an annoying hindrance to getting things done—to the executive just wanting to get their job done—but it is so essential. Democracy is an aim in and of itself—the idea, the notion, the dream, the vision of government of the people, by the people, for the people. It is an end in and of itself. It is as valuable to our society as trains running on time and roads being built. The actions by the member for Cook served to undermine the principles of our democracy and make our democracy weaker. The actions that we are taking today seek to strengthen our democracy and its foundations. The member for Cook, by his actions in appointing himself to a number of portfolios in secret, displayed a contempt for this place and its role, and that's been canvassed fully. The pandemic is no excuse. Australia is no stranger to crisis. We have suffered wars, we have suffered the Spanish flu pandemic, we have suffered droughts and floods. COVID was a convenient excuse for the former Prime Minister to do what he wanted to do because he thought it was the best way to get the job done as he saw fit. He had no respect for the role of this chamber and its place in our democracy.

I am deeply troubled by the fact that there have been so few speakers from the other side—indeed I have seen none listed, though I'm happy to be corrected if there have been speakers on this from the other side. Those opposite, by staying silent, are failing to stand up for our democracy and failing to stand up for the protection of it. Those on the other side are supposed to be the conservatives, the guardians of tradition, the guardians of institutions. Instead what we saw with the former Prime Minister in his contribution in defending his role in doing this was a conga line of so-called conservatives pretty much kissing his ring and saying, 'Job well done, mate.' So few have stood up in this place to defend our democracy.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A point of order?

Russell Broadbent (Monash, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like the member to withdraw the comment about kissing.

Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Would the member withdraw the comment.

Brian Mitchell (Lyons, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw it.

Debate adjourned.