Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Australians are seeing the prices of everything go up under this government, including airfares, which are up as much as 50 per cent from three years ago. To add insult to injury, Qantas flights are regularly cancelled, and luggage is lost. How many times has the Acting Prime Minister taken a defence VIP flight from Canberra to Avalon Airport to go home from work?

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the shadow minister for his question. Certainly, these are tough times in terms of the cost of living, and we very much understand the pressures which are upon the budgets of household Australians and businesses, and it is why the focus of our government, from the very first day of our election, has been on easing the burden of that cost of living—be it seeking to increase the minimum wage, be it providing for more affordable child care, be it cheaper medicines or be it putting downward pressure on our energy bills—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, members on my right. I'll hear from the member for Canning, on a point of order?

Andrew Hastie (Canning, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, on relevance. We know the Minister can stretch himself—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Resume your seat.

Mr Sukkar interjecting—

Order, Member for Deakin!

Opposition members interjecting—

Order, members on my left. I give the call to the Leader of the House.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Speaker, not only was the Acting Prime Minister speaking specifically on the issues that were in the preamble of that question, every part of the point of order was a deliberate abuse of trying to get up some prepared lines. He knew exactly what he was doing, and it was a complete abuse.

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The member for Hume and the Deputy Leader of the Opposition will cease interjecting.

The Leader of the House and the Leader of the Nationals will cease interjecting. The member for Canning understands the standing orders and will not abuse them.

Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you. In every one of those efforts, we acted in the face of the opposition of those opposite.

As I said on Tuesday, everywhere I have been and everything that I have done has been in pursuit of my duties acting on behalf of the Australian people. I stand by every flight that I took on the special purpose aircraft or commercially. But I would also make this point. The question we just heard from the shadow minister is the eighth question that he has asked since the election. Since that time, we made a decision to acquire nuclear-powered submarines. That was quite a big deal—not a single question on that. We made a decision to engage in the single biggest reposturing of Australia's Defence Force—not a single question on that. But now we have had three questions on the special purpose aircraft. Those opposite get 70 minutes each and every parliamentary day to raise the most significant questions facing the Australian people, and this is what the shadow minister chooses to raise. It says everything about a party which gave us seven different defence ministers in the course of the last decade who could not make a decision in relation to our submarine capability, opening up enormous capability gaps. It's never about the policy; it's always about the politics.

But we didn't need to know that to understand this. On 4 January 2020 we absolutely understood how they were about the politics when in the face of the biggest bushfires that we'd had as country they used the Australian Defence Force to cut an ad to raise money for the Liberal Party. It's always about the politics, never about the policy.

Honourable members interj ecting—

Milton Dick (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The level of noise is completely unacceptable. The level of noise yesterday was completely unacceptable. I'm issuing a general warning today. There won't be any more warnings: people will just be excluded by their behaviour.