Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise also to take note of the answers to the questions asked by Senator O'Neill to Senator Abetz. As per usual, Senator Abetz's answers do not tell us very much about the subject matter of the question. What they do tell us is a great deal about the dysfunction, the disunity and the disarray that we have all come to expect from the government.

Just to be very clear and in answer to some of the other contributions to the debate, Labor does not support the effects test. I come here really to offer my condolences to the Minister for Small Business, because it cannot be very pleasant being publicly hung out to dry by your Prime Minister. As recently as the beginning of August, Minister Billson was reported in The Australian Financial Review as being absolutely confident that the government was going to be pursuing this measure. Yet, just this week, it has been kicked into the long grass by the Prime Minister and the Treasurer because they are absolutely terrified about the debate and the division within their own party room.

I also wish to offer my condolences to the business community. Two years ago this government promised that Australia was open for business. Instead, all we have seen is uncertainty, caused by this government's chronic inability to make a decision or, worse, to even produce a stable environment in which the business community can make their decisions.

The issue of the effects test is characteristic of this much broader pattern. On this issue we had concerns. We came out and said so in a very straightforward manner what our concerns were and the community knew what we were about. The PM clearly shares our concerns. However, he has not made a decision one way or the other. He has not commissioned any further inquiries or tried to get any more information and he is not open to debate about the issue in any way at all. Instead, he has delayed the decision. He is unable to make difficult decisions. And we do not just see it on this issue. We see it on the issue of marriage equality where, instead of allowing the party room to make a decision, that issue has also been kicked into the long grass, pushed off into the never-never where 'We might have a plebiscite or a referendum, but we certainly won't deal with it until after the next election.'

Why is it that the Prime Minister seems unable to make a decision? It is essentially because this is a government that is riven by division. There is disunity in the cabinet. How do we know that? We know there is a divergence of views, because members of cabinet speak about them constantly to the media. We hear about it all the time because they tell us. They have leaked conversation after conversation to the national media. They even leaked the talking points which instructed them not to leak to the media but instead to communicate to the media that cabinet was functioning perfectly well.

A government that needs talking points to explain to us that its government is functioning perfectly well is a government that is unable to function at all. It is normal to have different views in a party room and that has been explained to us very carefully by members opposite. But you can expect cabinet ordinarily to back any decision. This Prime Minister clearly cannot trust his cabinet to do even that.

The day after the decision to defer this matter was made by the PM, the Minister for Small Business said to the WA Chamber of Commerce and industry:

And you would have read, I am sure in recent days, I am getting smacked around by trying to get the competition rules right.

Well, the people whom he is getting smacked around by are the people on his own side. He is being smacked around by the Prime Minister, the Treasurer and the Minister for Foreign Affairs.

I say to those opposite but, more importantly, to those people out there in the community that it is time for us to see the grown-up government that we were promised. In the two years that we have had to endure this government, we have not seen anything like it. We have seen division and dysfunction. We have certainly not seen decision making in the public interest.

The government do not stand for anything at all, except for the pursuit of power. They are a government that are not interested in jobs for ordinary people. They are a government that are only interested in their own jobs. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.