Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

and yours, Senator Polley, I think. Since 1952, the Senate in a non-election year has never sat for a shorter time than it will this year. So it is hardly overwork that is causing the government the problem that they have with their own agenda. It is the politics that they have been playing that has caused them the problems.

In recent times we have had the government filibustering on its own policies. Remember the stimulus package—filibustering in their own committee stages because they had not got the policy framework right. They were busy playing the politics but not preparing the policy—all about the spin, not about the substance. After a while, if you play spin too long, the lack of substance catches up with you, and that is what Senator Ludwig and the Labor Party are confronted with this afternoon. They have been spinning too much and they do not have their agenda in order.

We as an opposition say that, if you cannot manage the Senate, you clearly cannot manage the country. It is no wonder that, at a time of high unemployment, soaring up to 5.2 per cent, a time of high industrial disputation—it is four times the amount that it was in the last year of the Howard government—and a time of crippling debt being thrown on our country, Labor are now still unable to come up with their substantive policy response.

They promised the Australian people during the 2007 election year and during the campaign that Forward with Fairness was it and that the legislation they would introduce would exactly mirror what was in Forward with Fairness. That was their solemn promise to the Australian people. Today we know, not only from the bill that has been put before us, that they have breached that promise. There is no doubt that, in the 50 extra pages of amendments that we are going to be confronted with today, there will be even more breaches of their policy.

It is little wonder, when they cannot arrange the Senate’s affairs in a timely, proper and substantive manner, that we have a government that is now running a policy to limit skilled migration intake on the one hand whilst on the other hand we have the illegal immigrant intake off our northern borders increasing. This is a government that has no policy vision for this country—it is all about spin, not substance.

It is nice to see some more amendments being circulated on the Fair Work Bill, but still not the Labor Party’s amendments. What we have always said, whilst in government and also in opposition, is that it is ultimately a matter for the government to seek to determine the agenda of the parliament. But, when they make a big song and dance about the need for the Fair Work Bill to be put through, accuse us in the other place of deliberately stalling the legislation and then come into this place the following week seeking to defer the legislation, Ms Gillard and Mr Rudd owe the Senate, the coalition and the Australian people an apology. They have sought to criticise, they have sought to vilify and they have sought to bully the Senate and the coalition into a particular position in relation to this legislation, in circumstances when the government did not even have its own bill ready. That is the hallmark of this government: it is all about the political line; it is not about getting the policy right. It is all about the spin, hoping to get that into the evening news cycle and not worrying about the substance. That is why the Manager of Government Business in the Senate has had to come into this place, humiliated, and ask for the deferral of the Fair Work Bill.

This is the point that needs to be remembered: the government is seeking, by this motion, to defer its own legislation, the Fair Work Bill. This is a government move. I wonder if Ms Gillard will take a dorothy dixer today in question time to vilify Senator Ludwig and the Labor Party in this place, who are moving the deferral of the Fair Work Bill legislation. Of course she will not. And we know why: because she is not interested in the substance of what she says—it is all about the spin that she hopes to try to get out there.

We say it is up to the government to determine their legislative priority. They can and they will. We will not stand in opposition to that. But what we will point out to the Australian people, and highlight yet again, is the audacity and arrogance of Ms Gillard, who complains that we in the opposition are not dealing with this matter. I say to you, as shadow minister representing the workplace relations portfolio in this place, that we could have got started on this bill, we could have kept going with this, but it is the government, the Labor Party, that are seeking to delay it—and we will remind the Australian people on every possible occasion that it was Labor’s delay, not our delay, when it comes to any criticism in that area. We will not be opposing the move by the government, but we do highlight the substantive shortcomings in relation to the management of the government’s agenda.