Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak today to the reality of the chaos and dysfunction of this amazingly spectacular government in terms of the show of chaos and dysfunction. In any assessment of this government—it does not matter where you look, from superannuation to the backpacker tax, from the plebiscite to placating the right wing of his party who want to undermine our racial discrimination laws—this is a government in chaos in every area of policymaking and in every area of management of its parliamentary responsibilities. It is a government at war with itself.

There are many causes of this chaos, but let's just begin with one particularly obvious one: there in the House of Representatives sits the member for Warringah—the lord of chaos; the Trojan mouse—reluctantly occupying his space on the backbench surrounded by his admiring legions. From there he looks down at the frontbench he occupied so ingloriously and whispers under his breath: 'Soon, Malcolm. Soon.' He is planning his resurrection day by day and gathering a group of chaotic wanderers around the corridors to join in the chaos making with him.

To add to this chaos that resides on the backbench, there is no sense of a cohesive and ordered leadership. They have no idea how they have ended up here and what they want to do. Along with the Prime Minister, this government has lost its sense of purpose. Malcolm once had a cool veneer of enlightenment. It appears to have been discarded, along with his leather jacket. And into the fray now we have the chaos and dysfunction of a government that does not know what it stands for anymore and a leader who does not know who what he stands for anymore. He has disappointed an entire nation, and that is powerfully demonstrated by polling that indicates his absolute loss of esteem in the Australian community.

On a very serious note, even this government's closest allies—those who back it up at every turn; of those who remain who are still talking to it—are freely admitting that the Abbott-Turnbull government is a tremendous disappointment. Before the election, stakeholders were promised one thing—certainly they were promised stable government. Indeed the whole Australian community was promised stable government in the sense that having a double dissolution would clean up the mess of the Senate. Well, if ever that was a falsity that was displayed, today is a wonderful demonstration of how chaotic this place is in terms of what the Liberals have delivered for the Australian people. It is like being promised a Rolls Royce and getting a horse and cart, and a clapped-out one at that. This is also a dysfunctional government that has upset everyone: doctors, teachers, nurses, business leaders, economists and the Solicitor-General, who is not to be forgotten in the midst of the chaos that we have seen from this government. They have certainly reinforced the fears of everybody who disagreed with them and, in addition to that, they have even alienated and alarmed those who they thought agreed with them.

This list of badly-thought-through and badly-executed policy ideas is a very long one, but let's just look at a couple, such as the NBN and its profound disappointment to people who have had it rolled out. There is the real NBN and there is the NBN that the government decided that you should have—a far lesser version of what Australia needs for economic capacity and the ability to drive productivity. There is also the chaos and the distress caused by making it more expensive and difficult for people to visit their GPs. We have had incredible alarm raised by the Australian Medical Association and the Royal Australian College of General Practitioners. The reality is that the cost to go the doctor is now increasing for so many people. Doctors' business models are unsustainable as we see this government wed to a policy of a freeze on the Medicare rebate. The consequences of that and the dysfunction that it causes for our society are very, very significant. It is not just about this place. The dysfunction that is emerging from those people who are implementing the policies here is replete throughout our entire community.

Then there is the area of mental health—an issue so important to so many Australians. This government is presiding over a period of time where there has been an increase in suicide.