Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Ending the blame game has turned out to be nothing more and nothing less than a huge comprehensive state and federal Labor cover-up. It is nothing more and nothing less than a politically motivated conspiracy of silence where the Prime Minister, Kevin Rudd, says to the Labor premiers, such as Alan Carpenter, ‘I won’t blame you if you won’t blame me.’ That is exactly what we have witnessed under this new policy of supposedly ending the blame game.

The reality is that the best way to ensure good government for the people across Australia is a strong federal system. We need a system with both strong and competent state and federal governments. And right now we have got neither. We need a system with all of its important checks and balances hard at work; a system in which premiers stand up to Canberra whenever Canberra pursues public policy—particularly when it relates to areas of state responsibility—that is bad public policy. Whenever the Commonwealth pursues policy that will have a bad impact on the state of Western Australia, I would expect the Premier of Western Australia to have a view and to stand up for Western Australia. But nothing of the like has happened.

We have a fine tradition in Western Australia where in the past strong premiers have stood up to Canberra, irrespective of political persuasion. Strong premiers like Sir David Brand, Sir Charles Court and Richard Court stood up to Canberra and were guided solely by what was in the best interests of their state, irrespective of whether there was a Liberal government in power in Canberra or not. But these days, we have Alan Carpenter, who was quite happy as Premier of Western Australia to be critical of John Howard as Prime Minister and of policies pursued by the Howard government.