Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

So, for crying out loud, if you do not have any grown-ups, can you just find one—pay one? Find an ex-bureaucrat or someone who can be a grown-up, who can get over there and who cannot carry on like this.

Let us talk about the north while we are at it. What about the shadow immigration minister at the time, Mr Scott Morrison? Between Mr Morrison and Mr Abbott, I am trying to think of the lines that I used to hear all the time. First it was 'stop the boats' then it was 'turn back the boats', 'turn back the boats when safe', 'buy back the boats', 'deny the boats', 'hide the boats' and 'what boats?' Watching the Prime Minister and the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection is like a scene from South Park, with Officer Barbrady: 'nothing to see, move along'. This is just incredible. I just wish that the grown-ups were in the building, because they are certainly lacking in the coalition party room.

Let us go back to education. Let us look at the footage of the COAG meeting the other day with the state education ministers. This is a government that has been in for 10 weeks. I am not expecting miracles. No-one expects miracles. You have to find your way. They have to sort out labour and staffing issues; they have to have an internal fight about who gets promotions and who gets the bigger office. I know, I understand. After 10 weeks we had Mr Pyne, the Minister for Education, tell the Australian people he was on a unity ticket, that the coalition were on a unity ticket with Labor on public school funding and that no school would be worse off. Then we have Mr Pyne publically slapping down state education ministers from both persuasions, Labor and Liberal, and refusing to honour agreements with New South Wales and other states that were agreed to before the election. In the footage of the wound-up state ministers, there is Mr Pyne in the corner with the most silly of smirks on his face; to him it was just a big joke.

I know I am running out of time so I will move on to one of the other clangers: 'We are open for business.' Oh my goodness, I think that might have come from the Prime Minister talking about foreign investment and attracting foreign investment to Australia. We all know this great nation was built on foreign investment. Coming from Western Australia, if we did not have foreign investment where would we be, not just in agriculture but in mining? When I tour the Ord stage 2 development, the sugar—Senator Eggleston was talking about it proudly earlier on today, and I was agreeing with him—thank goodness for the Chinese; they are pumping in nearly a billion dollars. But it is not only the Chinese up on the Ord River. There are the Brits, the Americans, the Indians; they are all up there. They are 'open for business'.

I recall another clanger while we were talking about foreign investment, while it was a hot topic, and it was in relation to the sale of GrainCorp to the American conglomerate ADM. I saw another comedy sketch where the Treasurer, Mr Hockey, came out, breaking into one of those famous sweats, and saying that he would not be bullied—the Libs have to repeat everything twice—about foreign investment.

As chair of the Rural and Regional Affairs and Transport Committee, I can tell you that tonight was set aside to continue our inquiry. It was ably supported by Senator Gallacher and I from Labor; we wanted to hear more and talk more about GrainCorp. We wanted to talk more to ADM. Guess what? The panic hit the room. Senator Heffernan, you old dog—you sly old dog! Great work behind the scenes, fantastic; knocked the Treasurer right between the eyes, blew him out of the game. So we find that we are not really open for business. We might be open for business but we just have to run that past the Nationals first and make sure that they are happy with that.

A government senator interjecting—

As for the grown-ups: we just have to try and find some grown-ups, because we do not have any grown-ups over there. If we had grown-ups we would not have the foreign minister out there—where was she? In Cambodia or Myanmar or somewhere—telling them the Japanese were our best friends while insulting the Indonesians. Now she is trying to pick a fight with the Chinese. That is her latest one. For crying out loud, as I said, I am happy to chuck on a new pair of Havis, a new pair of boardies, I will go over. I could not do a worse job than what is going on with that lot over there.