Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise today to contribute my address-in-reply. It is a shame that the government has started the new 45th Parliament with a smear campaign against in particular Senator Dastyari but more pointedly the Labor Party. There is a reason that the government has started this way—that is, the government continues to have in this brand-new parliament an even bigger problem with its backbench. I recalled on many occasions in the 44th Parliament, drawing it to the attention of the Senate and indeed the public, that it was the backbench controlling the government ministers, as we saw backdown after backdown driven not by policy, driven not by ministers responsible for particular outcomes but by backbenchers who continue to be disillusioned with the way that the Liberal Party, indeed the government, was heading. So that is why we see this absolutely shocking, over-the-top smear campaign. It is about the government trying to hide its many faults.

I think Senator Lambie today remarked that, three days in, the government really had not changed. The government had continued to try to rush things along to not give an opportunity to the much bigger crossbench—which it voted on, with its electoral reform, in partnership with the blue Greens to have changes in the way the Senate voting reform came. Well, we have a much bigger crossbench now, and the government is continuing to ignore them. From what Senator Lambie shared with us this morning, the government is not really giving new crossbenchers the opportunity to get across a considerable agenda.

Why is it that the government has this smear campaign? We have seen two awful things which attack ordinary Australians. One is this ridiculous continuation with a plebiscite on same-sex marriage. I see now that some in the Australian community think that somehow having a plebiscite decides the matter. Of course, it does not. We are a representative democracy, and it is our job as MPs and senators to make decisions. Only the Australian parliament can choose to change or not change the Marriage Act. Only the Australian parliament can do that. Whether we have a plebiscite or not makes no difference to that outcome. Quite frankly, it is absolutely time that we did our jobs and did not waste at least $160 million on a plebiscite which is completely unnecessary and which will just hurt people.

We heard that in Ireland, with the experience they had, they were required to have a plebiscite in order to get to marriage equality. We are not required to do that. We heard how they were very mindful not to hurt people. But we are talking about choices that individuals make—individuals who have a particular way of life; individuals who are not heterosexual. So we are going to have a majority of Australians cast judgement on a minority group. That, in and of itself, will create division; it will create hurt. Indeed, I think groups who support people who are coming out are saying it will lead to suicides. This is a very complex issue not to be decided through the hate and the kind of lecturing we will see if we go down the plebiscite route. So that is my first point about this deliberate smear campaign to hide the ills of the government.

The second issue is: 18C has raised its head again. When you attack someone on the basis of their religion, the colour of their skin or the way they look, that is hurtful. We do need to protect people in this country. All of us, I am sure, as children have been taunted by others. Now, as an adult, I vividly remember the sorts of taunts I copped as a young child. I cannot imagine how much worse that becomes if the colour of your skin is different to mine or if you choose to follow a religion which is not part of the mainstream religion. 18C is there for a reason. Again, we are whipping up hatred in this country against minority groups. On day three of this parliament, that is very clearly the agenda of the backbench—to keep 18C rocking and rolling along to create that division, and the issue of the plebiscite, which is completely unnecessary and is a massive expenditure of public moneys.

Last week, at the National Press Club, we heard Mr Morrison going on about a trillion dollars worth of debt and telling those on low incomes and on pensions that they have to somehow tighten their belts, and that if they do not tighten their belts then the government will tighten them for them by looking at the sorts of benefits they get. I think they were referred to, in the new terminology, as the 'not taxed'. So against this backdrop of attacking pensioners and low-income Australians and of, really, attacking all sorts of supports in our community, the government wants to waste at least $160 million—I am sure it will cost more than that—on a plebiscite that does not do a single thing to change the Marriage Act. I was on the public record way before I came into this place that I have always supported marriage equality. I just do not understand why we cannot get there. I know now people who do not even support marriage equality but just want it done and dusted. It is inevitable. We are embarrassing ourselves as a country to remain where we are. So that is the division we are seeing. It is very public and on display.

Then, of course, there is the whole superannuation debacle that is going on among those opposite. We are hearing the government ministers, the government frontbenchers, try to assure us that they will go ahead and make changes to super that, quite frankly, benefit the most wealthy in our country. But, again, those backbenchers are agitating that those kinds of cuts to the wealthiest in the country are somehow unfair. We know from the last parliament, the 44th Parliament, who is running the Turnbull government. It is not the frontbench and it is not the ministers; it is the backbench. And there are more of them now who are united against their own leadership. So that is why we have a smear campaign.

We have a smear campaign because Labor has a very clear agenda that we are proud to be talking about. That agenda benefits ordinary Australians. It looks after people. It does not seek to make their lives harder. We want to put in place policies that advance Australia and that put people first. Look at the great fuss we have had—I do not know where the government gets its opinion polls from, but does it seriously think that ordinary Australians do not support a banking royal commission?

It was pointed out to us today that we have in the building some of the victims who have lost their homes, their livelihoods, their wellbeing, their lives, through the behaviour of banks. What reasonable government would want to continue to stick up for the banks against ordinary Australians who have well and truly been ripped off? Nobody understands that. When I talk to ordinary Australians about a banking royal commission—of course we still need to have other reforms, and banks need to be held to account—they think we have to get to the truth of this and banks have to be held accountable.

What did we see our Prime Minister do? He rushed ahead to protect the banks at all costs. He is well and truly out of step with ordinary Australians who absolutely want a royal commission. We saw that this morning: more protectionism going on ahead as we absolutely have to protect the banks who, quite clearly, are well able to protect themselves. We have seen the banks snub governments—Labor and Liberal—year in, year out, because they are the big money, they are the big end of town. They wield a lot of power and, unfortunately, our Prime Minister is dancing to their tune. Instead of representing millions of Australians who want a royal commission, Mr Turnbull has gone back to his roots, his comfort zone and, unfortunately, he continues to protect the banks.

Marriage equality: let's just get it done. Let's just have a vote in this place, get it done and end the misery. Love is love. If you want to marry someone, let's make that possible. If you do not want to marry someone, what harm is done?

We have also seen the attacks on Medicare. The government tried to turn that into some kind of scare campaign. Medicare is a bedrock of our system. Our healthcare system, Medicare, which Labor introduced, has had every single coalition try to attack it since its introduction. That is what has happened here. Again, throughout the election campaign, Australians were absolutely on the money in relation to what the federal government was doing to Medicare.

Make no mistake: the Turnbull government will not hoodwink ordinary Australians on the issue of Medicare, because generations now have grown up with Medicare as the founding block of our health system—a universal health system we should all be proud of, unlike the US, where poor people, and even middle-income earners, are missing out. Women cannot have breast cancer treatment, because their insurance is not good enough. That is criminal, and I certainly do not want to—and millions of other Australians agree with me—go down that road in Australia.

Education: come on! We are failing in this area. We are going backwards and we were—remember in the 44th Parliament—told we had a unity ticket on Gonski, and that has just gone. These continue to be Labor's policies. We are very clear on that and not only that: we are absolutely united. We want to talk about policies and, unfortunately, what we have seen over the last couple of days is a smear campaign by the Turnbull government.

Let's just put that into a broader perspective, because there have actually been a lot of donations to the Liberal Party from Chinese organisations and indeed most recently—and this has been in the media—Minshen Zhu from Top Education Institute has indeed met with Senator Brandis. There are plenty of photos in the media of that occurring. The same gentleman has met with our Prime Minister. We are not tarring them with the same brush.

Australia cannot operate as a progressive country that wants to raise our standard of living and increase our trade opportunities without talking to other countries, without engaging with private sector companies, without visits—all of the things that make us a robust country and a good trading partner. However, let's just make this debate a little bit larger than $1,600. Let's be very clear about that: we have got proof and photos—as I said, it has been in the media—of Senator Brandis, who led the attack today, meeting with Minshen Zhu of Top Education and indeed our Prime Minister.

Yesterday, just after Senator Dastyari came in here and made his statement, we had Senator Bernardi leading the attack. He seems to be in the Liberal Party but he has got a fundraising organisation that is called Australian Conservatives. Guess what? Guess who they encourage donations from? China, and it is on their website for all to see. If we are going to start pointing the finger, let's just broaden this. We are not making a fuss about this, but it is what it is. But Senator Bernardi did not tell us: 'Oops! And, by the way, I too with my Australian Conservatives fund encouraged donations from China.' It is there on the website—go and have a look. It is headed up:' Donate to Australian Conservatives' just as those photos of Senator Brandis and Mr Turnbull are out there for the public to see, meeting with the officials from Top Education.

Let's just look a bit further—I am looking at one particular donation to the Liberal Party in its financial disclosures from 2013-14. Guess who it's from, Mr Acting Deputy President Gallacher? None other than Top Education. In the same way that it was on Senator Dastyari's declaration, here it is declared—we are not making any comment about that, but come on. Here we have a donation to the Liberal Party of Australia, its New South Wales division, of $22,000 from the Top Education group. Again, there in black and white, because the Liberal Party has accepted donations from overseas.

Actually, between 2013 and 2015, Top Education donated a total of around $65,000 to the Liberal Party. Did we hear that from Senator Bernardi yesterday? No, we did not. We did not hear from Senator Bernardi that his Australian Conservatives solicit donations from China. We did not hear it from Senator Brandis in his unprecedented attack today that the Liberal Party had received donations from Top Education.

Let's look at what Labor has tried to do on banning overseas donations? We have tried a couple of times when we were in government to ban these donations, and guess what?

The coalition, including its members in Senator Bernardi and Senator Brandis, voted it down. When Labor, on two occasions, put up legislation to ban overseas donations, the government was not having it. Why? Because they value donations such as $65,000 from Top Education and from a range of other overseas donors. I ask again: what is going on here with this smear campaign? It is because the Turnbull government has no agenda. It has an agitated back bench. In the 44th Parliament, we saw how that backbench was really the decision-making arm of the Turnbull government, and we are seeing it again in day 3 of this parliament. Once again that backbench is well and truly in control.

We have had the coalition voting against reforms to electoral laws banning overseas donations on at least two occasions; for the record, that was in 2009 and again in 2010. I would posture that that is because individual government senators, individual Liberal Party members and perhaps even National Party members, want to continue to receive donations from China and want to continue to receive donations from Top Education. Why else would you vote against legislation to ban overseas donations that Labor put in place? Doesn't that fix the problem? But it is very convenient for them to try and continue with their smear campaign, because they have nothing else on their agenda—nothing else at all.

We have seen all sorts of overseas donations to individual politicians and, indeed, Prime Minister Turnbull has accepted donations from the US-based Fortress company—the same company that foreclosed on Hurricane Katrina victims. Indeed, in 2006, 10 months after a Mr Edwards joined Fortress, it bought Centex Home Equity company of Dallas—one of the country's subprime lenders—renaming it Nationstar. We know that Fortress, if we track their movements, began its moves into subprime lending before Mr Edwards joined, but it continued, buying Conseca Finance Servicing Corp out of bankruptcy in 2003 and renaming it Green Tree. The links are all there.

We see that donations are still flowing from overseas into the Liberal Party's coffers, and Labor made it very clear where we stood on that. We have made it clear on at least two occasions. We have certainly made it clear in this place when we put in place legislation that would have stopped that. And as it was absolutely knocked on the head by none other than the Liberal-National Party coalition, we know very clearly where they stand on the issue of overseas donations—whether it is from China or whether it is from Top Education. They want that money to continue to flow; otherwise they would have accepted Labor's legislation.