Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I am not entirely sure where Senator McLucas was last night, but I know where she wasn’t. She most certainly was not at the AiG dinner, because she could not possibly have come out of that dinner and made the comments that she has now made. Indeed, it was a shrill commentary. It lacked any depth at all. It did not attempt to address in any way the big issues that are expected of the Prime Minister. Indeed, look at some of the commentary. I am looking at the Canberra Times headline. “ALP becoming ‘party of zombies’”, ‘Internal Rumblings’. There is a picture of Senator Doug Cameron. It looks as if he is doing 30 with a minimum of 20. I do not think the photo does him any justice at all, but his comments most certainly do.

Effectively, Senator Cameron, one of the strongest members of the parliamentary Labor Party, has—within the space of nine weeks since the last election—accused his own party of treating members like zombies and giving members political lobotomies. The comments of Senator Cameron are quite instructive. He said: ‘We are not allowed to stand up for the people that we represent. You can’t talk about things. You’re not allowed to talk about things. And, really, you know, we don’t want zombie politicians.’

The most remarkable thing that we have seen today is the Newspoll. Nine weeks after the election of a new government, the Labor Party is behind in the Newspoll. There is only one reason for this. It is because the Labor Party have already broken the so-called deal that they went to the election with. They have broken the deals in relation to health, economic management and illegal immigration. They have broken deal after deal of the deals that you allegedly made with the Australian people.

The arrangement that they have made with the Australian Greens is clear evidence of the depths that they have reached. Labor are a party beholden to a group of people who in the main—certainly in this chamber—they do not share the philosophical beliefs of. There are some in the chamber today—and I will not identify them—who do not share the philosophical beliefs of the Australian Greens. They do not share the philosophical beliefs of some of the Independents. Labor has done a grubby deal to retain power. The Australian people have seen through the grubby deal. The Australian people know that Labor do not believe in what the Greens believe in. But they know that Labor have done a deal simply to hold government.

The Australian people would look at the performance of the Prime Minister last night and say to themselves: ‘What have we done? What have we let this country in for for a maximum of three years? What can we trust about this political party?’ As the Leader of the Opposition has said quite clearly, ‘This is a government which simply can’t keep its word.’ There is no more damning indictment of a political party, and particularly of a Prime Minister, than being accused of not keeping their word. The Australian people know what is going on. The Australian people can see through the Australian Labor Party and this new government. The Australian people have made a decision in nine short weeks that they do not believe you, that everything that you touch is a mess and that your word cannot be trusted. The great tragedy is that there is another potential three years left of the sort of mistruths and policy inaction that we have seen from this government already. Senator Cameron is absolutely right. This is a political party in which there is no debate. This is a political party that is micromanaged more than it was under the Prime Minister that you unceremoniously dumped. (Time expired)