Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

The Labor luminaries that have brought us this censure motion are the same Labor luminaries that told the Australian people there would be no carbon tax. They are the same Labor luminaries that engineered the pink-batt debacle, which saw four Australians lose their lives. They are the same Labor luminaries that went to the Australian people at the 2013 election without a single word of defence policy. The person who moved the motion is none other than the former failed finance minister who ran up the biggest debt this country has ever seen, which we as a government now need to fix on behalf of the Australian people. And the seconder of the motion, Senator Conroy, was the architect of the debacle of Australian acquisition, namely the National Broadband Network. Labor have not only left us with a huge defence capability gap; they have also delivered a huge credibility gap.

I say in particular to the crossbenchers—and I would invite them very carefully to listen to what I am about to say—that censure motions are not to be treated in a flippant manner. They are serious. I was here under the Howard government when Labor and those opposite used to move a censure motion nearly on a weekly basis, and it became laughable. Indeed, the only regret I had, serving in the Howard ministry, was that I was never censured. I thought I just did not quite make the mustard. I just was not quite up there to be deserving of a censure motion. So freely were they given out that it demeaned the currency of a censure motion.

What I would say to those opposite and especially the crossbenchers is this: those that move censure motions need to come into this place with clean hands. When you see Senator Wong's past performance as a failed finance minister and as the failed climate change minister—remember, the greatest moral challenge of our time was climate change. Everything had to stop to fix it. And then, all of a sudden, it was just jettisoned like a used tissue, to be thrown away and forgotten about as though it had never previously existed. This is that sort of passion and commitment. It is faux passion. It is faux commitment. It is just pretence on behalf of the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate.

And then what about the clean hands of Senator Conroy, the man who brought us the debacle of the National Broadband Network, which misled the Australian people coast to coast by putting up on websites that the NBN was being rolled out here and rolled out there? When we came to government and opened the books, there was no rollout happening in those places at all. It was being put on the website simply as a political ruse, as an attempt to shore up the government of the day, which of course was the discredited Labor government. So the people that are bringing this motion to us have no credibility.

Let us set that aside. Let us have a look at what a censure motion should be all about. I simply pose this question: what is the actual allegation against Minister Johnston? Did he fail to administer his portfolio? No. Did he mislead the Senate? No. Did he fail to declare a conflict of interest—read Mr Fitzgibbon? No. Did he breach any parliamentary rule? Answer: no. What did he do? He simply overstated, as he said, in a rhetorical flourish at the end of a noisy question time while being constantly baited and interrupted by Senator Conroy. It was a matter that he regrets, and he has said so. So somebody makes an error by overstatement; he admits it, and then we are going to censure him for that. Excuse me. Is that going to be the standard for a censure motion—that you overstate something in a rhetorical flourish in the heat of a debate by whilst being baited by those opposite, and you have the decency to apologise, but we will still censure you? What a waste of the Senate's time.

This is designed by the Australian Labor Party to ensure that the government's important program does not get through by the end of the year. This is a methodology employed by desperate oppositions since time immemorial, and we know the tricks that they play. And that is why the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate continually interjects during my contributions and everybody's contributions, every single question time. Indeed, I took a note of Senator Conroy's, her deputy's, interjections. Within the first five minutes of Senator Johnston's speech, he had interjected more than 13 times, and I lost count. This is their behaviour, yet they come in here and say, 'We are the upholders of parliamentary standards.' If only somebody could supply them with a mirror, what a sight they would see, and they would not be moving these sorts of censure motions.

So what is it that Senator Johnston is alleged to have done? I simply say that it is a measure of an individual to say, 'I overstated something. I regret it.' I would have thought that we were all mature enough to then move on. We are told that Senator Johnston heinously 'insulted the men and women of the ASC'. Well, he has already withdrawn that. The seconder of the motion, Senator Conroy, said this to a man who has given over 30 years of faithful service in uniform in the Navy: 'You can't tell the Australian public the truth. That is called a political cover-up'. In other words, under parliamentary privilege, he accused somebody in uniform of lying and being engaged in politics, but he comes in here saying, 'Oh, I'm concerned that the defence force's reputation might be tarnished by something which the minister has withdrawn.'

Why doesn't Senator Conroy come in here and have the decency to apologise to Lieutenant General Campbell? When you come to this place with a censure motion, you have to come with clean hands. Senator Conroy was the architect of a deliberate ploy to trash the personal reputation of an individual in uniform such as Lieutenant General Campbell—he deliberately set up and pre-planned it for Senate estimates—but when caught out and exposed, he did not apologise. In the heat of the moment, Senator Johnston says something and is decent enough to acknowledge he should not have said what he did.

I say to the crossbenchers, you vote for this sort of censure motion, you vote for hypocrisy writ large. You will encourage the likes of Senator Conroy who will do one thing and then demand the exact opposite of his political counterpart. That is not leadership, that is not statesmanship, especially not in the vital defence portfolio, which requires bipartisanship.

Why is it that Senator Conroy so viciously attacked Lieutenant General Campbell at Senate estimates this year? Because he was being told chapter and verse how border protection was working and that which Senator Wong and Senator Conroy told the Australian people could not be achieved was actually being achieved. We were stopping the boats and, by stopping the boats, we were stopping the over 1,000 deaths at sea overseen by the Australian Labor Party's mismanagement of border protection. So we were not only saving lives but we were allowing ourselves to undertake a genuinely orderly intake of refugees whereby social justice can be served, whereby people can come into this country on a basis of need, not on the basis of being able to pay criminals to advance their cause by gate crashing Australia. Senator Conroy did not want to hear any of that and so, as is Labor's wont, he made a personal attack under parliamentary privilege, accusing somebody of lying.

When he was asked to withdraw, he did not. When he was asked to apologise, he did not. Yet he comes in here, saying to the crossbenchers in particular, 'Listen to me. I'm the upholder of standards. I'm the person you should be listening to.' That is something I would invite the crossbenchers to keep in mind. Senator Conroy also told us that that for which Senator Johnston has already apologised was damaging perceptions of defence personnel, that it would undermine confidence and that it would cause reputational damage. Yet calling a man in uniform a liar or saying, 'You can't tell the Australian public the truth; it's called a political cover-up,' does not damage perceptions of our men and women in uniform, does not occasion any reputational damage and does not undermine confidence? Excuse me: it does all three of those things for which Senator Conroy to date has not yet apologised.

We are told in this censure motion that we are threatening the integrity of the Future Submarine project and Australia's defence capacity. Well, let us have a look at Labor's six years in government. The former government's decisions led to—just listen to this—119 defence projects being delayed, 43 projects being reduced in scope and eight projects cancelled, risking critical capability gaps. I wonder what that might have done to the workforces right around this country. I wonder what another 119 defence projects might have been able to deliver by way of jobs. But here, today, we get this ridiculous display of crocodile tears and concern for workers who allegedly do not have a job. The problem is that there was no work done in the submarine space for the six years of the previous Labor government. Senator Johnston, excellent, capable minister that he is, was confronted with a blank sheet of paper, in circumstances where Labor had said, throughout their term, that they had plans, they were getting ready to build, everything was on track and all Senator Johnston had to do was take it over. I suspect Senator Johnston made the mistake of believing that which Labor had been saying. When he confronted his ministerial desk on coming to office, he saw that the plan was simply a blank sheet of paper.

If we are having a look at standards of ministerial conduct, I remind Labor of Mr Fitzgibbon, Labor's defence minister, who was forced to resign. Why? Because of the excellent work of one Senator Johnston. Oh! I wonder whether that might be one of the reasons that Labor have come in here with a trumped-up charge to try to even the ledger—a little bit of payback. I simply ask if the Labor Party wants to go through that which Mr Fitzgibbon did. Indeed, Senator Faulkner was part and parcel of a meeting, if the media reports are correct, that then led to Mr Fitzgibbon's resignation, after the expose so wonderfully undertaken by Senator Johnston—an expose which showed that a minister had been in breach of the ministerial code of conduct. He resigned. It was the right thing to do. But where was Senator Conroy's outrage at the time? Silence. And Senator Wong's outrage at the time? Silence. Yet they come in here and say: a man who apologises for what he has said should somehow be censured. I simply say: what a huge, huge double standard.

Now we are told as well that somehow Senator Johnston failed to protect the conditions and pay of our defence personnel. Well, Mr Acting Deputy President, what do we have here? We have a situation where the Australian Labor Party in the 2013 election told the Australian people: 'The budget is on track to come in at an $18 billion deficit.'