Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a mess you have over there—what a mess! We have watched from this side of the chamber what started as a slow but steady trickle of dissenting members from the coalition ranks, but the floodgates are opening. The perception of a united coalition is quickly fading. Instead we have members threatening to and, indeed, crossing the floor. What are we hearing from the government party room? Words such as ‘gagged’, ‘arrogant’, ‘out of touch’, ‘bullying’ and ‘shameful’ reportedly describe the atmosphere, the attitude and the actions of the coalition party room.

It is not long ago that the Australian public had to endure the joyful, gleeful proclamations of the Prime Minister when he thought he could rubber-stamp his way through another term of regressive and draconian policy. A year out from an election this is the last thing that the government leadership would want to be facing, but face it they will have to. More and more members are walking away from key government policies. We are witnessing growing coalition divisions within the Howard government. In recent weeks, we have seen confirmation of the growing rumblings in the backbench and the growing divisions between the front and backbenchers over such issues as the migration amendment bill, civil unions, independent contractors, internet filters, managed investment schemes, child care and, of course, we had the Queensland merger.

Indeed it appears to be turning into something of a mutiny on the Bounty. The voices of dissent continue to grow by the week. Already a number of Liberals, such as Judi Moylan and Mr Bruce Baird, have very publicly signalled ‘their concerns about the migration bill’. The Victorian Liberal Senator Judith Troeth is also on the record as saying, ‘There are some issues on which one should speak out and I believe that the migration bill is one of them.’ This policy proposal alone is creating tremendous division and disquiet in the Liberal Party room.

There are also deep divisions emerging in public about this government in other areas. This is clearly due to the extreme policy platforms of the Liberal Party. Indeed, the voices of dissent are growing by the day in the Liberal Party. They continue to gain momentum. This is a sign of a truly desperate, increasingly autocratic government. Recent weeks have certainly revealed the Achilles heel within the Howard government and, the more control that it tries to apply in the Senate or elsewhere, the more the dissent in the government’s ranks will grow.

When thinking about this issue I found myself posing the question: what is the government leadership doing? Is this symptomatic of a wider problem, a level of unrest about the direction of the coalition, a coalition running out of ideas, running out of puff and the leadership taking their backbench for granted? You would have to say, yes. The evidence shows that the Liberal Party and the coalition are in disarray and this fact can no longer be hidden by the government from public view.

Question agreed to.