Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to support this censure motion and the urgency with which we need to bring it on. The sands are shifting underneath Senator Johnston as we speak. The Prime Minister's unofficial press secretary has announced today, online, what is going to happen. The last time that the Prime Minister's unofficial press secretary made an announcement like this, Senator Sinodinos went to the backbench. Here is what Dennis Shanahan has said online today:

DAVID Johnston’s position as Defence Minister is effectively over.

The only reason he remains in the job for now is that Tony Abbott is manic about not changing his ministry because he wants to appear a stable government after six years of Labor leadership ...

Whether Johnston—

That is, Senator Johnston—

goes as Defence Minister now or a bit later depends is a moot point. His long-term standing is mortally damaged, he’s lost the confidence of his Cabinet colleagues and his comments have been publicly disowned by the Prime Minister.

Johnston’s remark about the submarine corporation not being trusted to build a canoe is not some simple slip of the tongue or “rhetorical flourish” which Abbott can claim is being blown out of proportion. Notwithstanding ASC’s past difficulties Johnston’s made a huge political mistake.

I will keep quoting:

In itself the remark is bad enough: the Australian government may want to sell its share of the ASC and the responsible minister has trashed the brand; the minister who has to make a decision on Australia’s biggest procurement project appears to have a preconceived opinion and; other nations are confused about his thinking.

But what makes it worse for Abbott is that the lack of a public strategy on the submarines and warships and the mixed messages of hope and despair for workers and Liberal colleagues in South Australia and Victoria represent a wider malaise in Coalition management.

And it goes on.

The last time we saw a statement like this from the Prime Minister's unofficial press secretary, Senator Sinodinos spent a year on the backbench. We all know what is happening over there, so let's have it on. The government should have accepted this censure motion. It was quite cowardly not to accept this censure motion, and we should be having the debate right now. I look forward to contributing in this debate because this minister has lost the confidence of all of those opposite, particularly the South Australians. I am looking forward to seeing if the whip can force Senator Birmingham, Senator Ruston and Senator Edwards to stay in the chamber to vote to support Senator Johnston, because they have all come out today. Mr Briggs came out today and said that he was wrong. Mr Marshall has already belled the cat on the untenable position that Senator Johnston is in. So we all know where this is going to end soon. We all know they are going to cling to Senator Johnston to try to stagger through until the end of next week and then he will disappear. He is the biggest barnacle to be scraped off by Mr Abbott in the next few weeks. We know it over here, we know it on the crossbenches and you all know it over there. The time is coming to an end.

So it is urgent that we debate this now. It is important that the Senate expresses its view about the conduct of the minister—about his dealings with defence pay, how he did not stand up to get a fair pay rise for Defence Force personnel, how he allowed others to rail over the top of him, and then he tried to pretend that he had not cut the pay and said that no-one is worse off. It is important for the Senate, right now, to be able to have a chance to debate these issues. I urge all of those in the chamber to support this suspension. Again the government stands condemned for failing to take the suspension on the chin—