Ian Campbell (WA, Liberal Party, Minister for the Environment and Heritage) Share this | Hansard source

Here we are back at the beginning of the year 2006 with all sorts of challenges facing Australia as a country—all sorts of major policy issues to ensure that Australia is kept economically secure, her borders are secure, the people have hope for the future, with a secure future, a good economy, a good health system and a good aged care system—and 38 minutes or thereabouts into question time, we get a question about a couple of senators and a conversation at an airport. It shows me, and I think it would show most people watching question time, a Labor Party that is so out of touch with the community and so devoid of any care about serious policy issues that 37 or 38 minutes into the first question time in a new year, in this new millennium, this is what they resort to.

Of course, who was the leading advocate of this tactic? It was one of the longest serving deputy leaders of a tired opposition, a tired Labor Party, Senator Conroy, who himself has an absolutely abysmal record of personal behaviour within the Australian Labor Party. In fact, I think there are reports of punch-ups in which Senator Conroy was involved on the floor of the Victorian state ALP conference last year. Of course, he is up to his neck in one of the biggest divisions within the Australian Labor Party in Victoria since the split. That is trying to see people like Mr Shorten unseat sitting members such as Mr Simon Crean, a long-serving member of the Australian Labor Party, a distinguished former Labor Party minister and in fact the former Leader of the Opposition. Of course, Senator Conroy is in it up to his neck.

The issues that confront Australia—the issues that the coalition are dealing with, that the Liberal Party are dealing with, that the National Party are dealing with and that Mr Howard, Mr Costello, the leadership team and Mr Howard’s ministers and all the party are dealing with—are: how do we ensure that the economy stays strong, how do we ensure that we build our exports, and how do we build our infrastructure through the AusLink project? We are focused on the main game.

Over summer, Labor were divided on issues like health care and climate change. You had Martin Ferguson out there talking about being sensible, about ensuring that the world has access to uranium and expanding nuclear power to ensure that we do not put emissions into the atmosphere. And you had Mr Beazley, only a few weeks later, saying, ‘No, we can’t have any nuclear power.’ You had Mr Ferguson out there saying, ‘Yes, it’s a good thing the coalition government are doing, pulling together half the world’s population in a historic meeting of nations to address climate change, to ensure that we have a strong economy, secure jobs in Australia, growing jobs in developing countries and yet lower carbon emissions.’ It is a historic agreement endorsed by one senior member of the Labor Party, who sits in the House of Representatives, Mr Ferguson, and of course slammed by other members, including the leader, Mr Beazley. Talk about reform fatigue when you are opposition leader! He has been opposition leader on and off for 10 years, with no new policies in key areas: no new policies in health, no new policies in aged care and no new policies in climate change. The best they can do after 38 minutes of coming into the premier legislative chamber in the Commonwealth of Australia is to start talking about conversations at airports.

This displays an opposition that has run out of puff. It has run out of enthusiasm. It has run out of ideas. All it can do is focus on things that are not relevant to the Australian people. The people of Australia do not want their government, their politicians, to focus on petty internal political issues or on personal issues; they want to ensure that their children have a good education, that they have access to a good health system and that elderly Australians have access to aged care. This is what the government is focusing on. On Friday the Prime Minister will lead the Council of Australian Governments meeting with the premiers and the territory leaders. They will be focusing, under his leadership, on improving Australia’s health care system and the aged care system and on coming up with a comprehensive Australian policy on climate change, with unprecedented cooperation between the states and the Commonwealth. These are the issues that matter to Australians. What matters to the Labor Party is petty politics. They should be condemned for that and, as Martin Ferguson says, get real!