Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

The normal custom and practice in this chamber is for a government to actually go through a methodical process of ensuring the chamber is aware of the bills the government regards as urgent, as a priority, and to plan for that. This is a government that I recall recently went through a very widespread public relations exercise called Operation De-barnacle. We had an extensive media campaign where the government said it was going to careen the ship of state. The ship of state would be put in the dry-dock, and then all the barnacles would be scraped away. Of course, what we had was the government saying that the things they were not able to secure support for in this chamber would be jettisoned. So we had the Prime Minister's office saying that the medical co-payment bills would be scrapped. We had the Prime Minister saying that the higher education bill would be put to the Senate and, if it failed, it would be removed.

But what the government then did was to go through a process of trying to get those bills by wasting as much time as possible. We had speakers list after speakers list amended by government senators being added to the list in the vain hope of trying to secure the support of this chamber. That measure failed. But you cannot then say to this chamber that we need extra time at five minutes to midnight, to suggest that there is some urgent bill which they should have considered in a much earlier part of the proceedings of this parliamentary session.

This is a government which its own members recognise is in chaos because of its arrogance. Take for instance the Western Australian Liberal MP Ken Wyatt, who has complained of a culture of arrogance inside the Abbott government ministry, which is reported to have struck a chord right through the Liberal Party party room. Mr Wyatt explained to The West Australian that, after one young staffer used his mobile phone to text message throughout a meeting that was being held with backbench members of the government, Mr Wyatt told the staffer to never come back again. He had a ministerial adviser telling his wife and backbenchers that they do not matter in Canberra.

This is a situation where the government cannot even organise its own back bench. We have a situation here where senators who are well known for their closeness to this government are complaining about the way in which they have been treated. We had Senator Lazarus drawing to our attention the undue attention that has received from a marauding minister that had to harass him in their desperate bid to secure support for government legislation which they knew was not likely to attract the support of the chamber yet consumed—what is it—eight hours of normal business and about 15 hours of government business time. They spent it on a bill which went nowhere and which they knew— (Time expired)