Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I give Senator Polley marks for something—and that is the courage to stand up and read a speech, which, I assume, was written by someone else because, quite clearly, this is a topic in which any member of the Labor Party would hate to be involved. Clearly, the debate on the failure of the Gillard government to govern for all Australians is a debate that really does not brook any opposition. Ms Gillard has been the most divisive Prime Minister this country has ever seen.

I have been around for some time, Madam Acting Deputy President Boyce, as you know. I was here during the days of Hawke and Keating, and I have to say that Mr Keating had a colourful turn of phrase and was thought not to be interested in uniting the country—in contrast, of course, to Mr Howard. He went out of his way to bring Australians together, and he often said that the things that unite us are greater than the things that divide us. But we now have a Prime Minister whose sole way of attack is to try and divide the country, to bring back the class warfare that has never existed in Australia; it was even done away with in England, back in the 19th century. Yet we have a Prime Minister who, at every opportunity, tries to bring on class warfare to divide Australian from Australian. I am very proud to say that I belong to a political party which does not just look after farmers. It does not just look after workers. It does not just look after tradesmen. It does not just look after businesspeople. It does not just look after miners. It does not just look after Indigenous people. It does not just look after fishermen. It is a party that is for all Australians. The Gillard government is anything but that.

We have seen that the Labor Party is a party controlled by a group of people representing just 17 per cent of workers—principally government workers of Australia. The union movement completely controls the Labor Party. As one of my colleagues pointed out: Ms Gillard addresses the AWU conference and makes it clear that she is the Prime Minister for the union movement, not for Australians, not for Queenslanders, not for the broad cross-section of our country but for the AWU and its cohorts in the Australian Council of Trade Unions. She is proud to go before the AWU and say that.

Let us look at the New South Wales Labor Party and how it governed in that state. Did it govern for all Australians? Did it work to benefit everyone who lived in New South Wales? It is quite clear from the recent ICAC inquiries that Labor ministers in New South Wales governed for themselves and their rich mates in the mining industry. Senator Polley and many of her colleagues keep railing against the coalition for looking after the big mining companies. Can I say to you, Senator Polley: Mr Eddie Obeid seems to be pretty close to the mining companies that you criticise, but I have not heard you or any of your colleagues over there at this moment criticise Mr Obeid for what seems to be a fairly clear case of big miners and big money being supported by the Labor Party in the state of New South Wales. Madam Acting Deputy President, you cannot tell me that that is a unique situation.

I now turn to the aura surrounding one of our parliamentary colleagues, Mr Craig Thomson. We see from the evidence there—and I concede nothing has been proved—that, when he was a member of the union movement, that union movement did not govern for or look after the interests of all of its members, but it did for those very select few bosses at the top. Ms Gillard is the same. She is interested in a particular section of the Australian public, which she hopes might get her back into power. She has no interest in anyone else.

Madam Acting Deputy President, you just have to look at the fiasco with the hospitals. Ms Gillard and, before her, Mr Rudd were going to—remember?—end the blame game on hospitals? Remember that? What have we got now? She is taking money out of all hospitals from all states and reintroducing the blame game. And then, when there is some pressure put on her, she decides to do a special deal with the Victorians. What about my state of Queensland? What about New South Wales? What about Western Australia? Are they going to get the same deal that Ms Gillard's home state got? Why did Ms Gillard's home state get it? It was because the polling was showing that Ms Gillard's complete disinterest in the health of Victorians was starting to have an even bigger political impact on her than her dishonesty in promising never to introduce a carbon tax. So, again, we have Ms Gillard and the Labor Party governing for those people needing health assistance in Victoria. Well, as I say, what about Queensland? What about New South Wales? What about the Northern Territory? What about Western Australia? We have heard so much from the Labor Party over the decades about how they are interested—

Debate interrupted.

Proceedings suspended from 18:30 to 19:30

Just before the break, an hour ago, we were debating a matter of public importance: the failure of the Gillard government to govern for all Australians. I had been pointing out, confirming and demonstrating with factual evidence the most divisive government Australia has seen. I was in parliament during the Keating years and that was pretty rough. I was around but not in parliament during the Whitlam government, which divided Australians enormously. The current Prime Minister has gone out of her way to pit Australian against Australian, to divide the country as has never been seen before. It contrasts so dramatically with the last coalition government Prime Minister, who went out of his way to reiterate that the things that unite Australians are far greater than those that divide us. Ms Gillard goes around the countryside accusing anyone who does not believe in her quite odd view on life of some sort of diminutive status. She does not have to like what other people think about climate change but you would think that, as the leader of a democratic nation, she would encourage debate and would welcome different views, but no. If you do not agree with Ms Gillard, you are a denier, a less than normal human being. That has been her way.

The Gillard government is clearly seeing its last days—I do not say that from our side of politics; I do not even say that from the commentariat—and you can see the death rattle within the Labor Party. Ms Gillard seems determined to enhance the destruction of her own party for reasons I find difficult to understand. At the recent AWU conference on the Gold Coast in the plush casino resort, when talking to the faithful, the workers' representatives, in her performance she clearly stated that she was the Prime Minister for every unionist, not for every Australian. This is what has been so wrong with the Gillard government. It demonstrates yet again that this is a government of narrow sectional interests, a government that is not really interested in mainstream Australia and is not interested in the small business community which is the engine room of employment and progress in the Australian economy; she is only interested in those who keep her in power—that is, the union movement.