Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak about the continued dysfunction and chaos that has been evident every single day since 1 July, when the coalition were returned to the government benches, and that continues. They have no idea what they are doing. They have a leader who had a plan to become Prime Minister of this country. The only problem was that when he was elected Prime Minister he had no plan. Today we have again had it demonstrated that he has no vision and no plan for this country.

It always delights me to follow Senator Macdonald's contributions in this chamber. Once again he talked a whole heap of nonsense. He is trying to rewrite history: every problem in the world today has been caused by the former Labor government. Well, that was too long ago now; the reality is that the problems we have in this country now and the disunity Senator Macdonald has in his party are caused by a lack of direction and lack of leadership from the Prime Minister, Mr Malcolm Turnbull.

We know that every time Mr Tony Abbott has the opportunity to get in front of the cameras he does everything he can to help the Prime Minister! But what do we have with the Prime Minister? When I am out in the community, most people say, 'Where is Malcolm Turnbull?' because we do not know who he is anymore. What they do see is a pale shade of Mr Abbott. There is really not a lot of difference when it comes to their policies. After telling us for months and months that they have stopped the boats coming to Australia, those opposite come up with this new thought bubble that Mr Turnbull caught as it was floating past. They thought, 'Let's get attention away from our own internal problems, from our own disunity and dysfunction.' Every time this government get into it any difficulty—and we know that Malcolm Turnbull's popularity is going down the drain—they turn either to national security issues or to 'Let's bash refugees!' What did they do? They went after the refugees. The Australian people are actually getting quite fed up with that, because they know, as everyone in this chamber knows, that a divided government cannot fulfil their obligation to provide good government for the Australian people.

When the Prime Minister addressed delegates at the Liberal state conference in my home state of Tasmania, with the demonstration of the sort of commitment and innovation that this government has created, what did the Prime Minister talk about? He talked about nine jobs that have been created in Tasmania. I for one am happy for every additional job that is created in my home state. But for a Prime Minister to swagger go on about nine jobs being created from this innovative, agile government was a joke. It was an embarrassment. Then we had the former Senator Richard Colbeck making his contribution, talking about—this is not the Labor Party; this is a former Liberal Senator from Tasmania—the disunity in his own party. He himself encouraged the party to come together. He knows, from talking to people around the community, that disunity is death to a government.

As I said, most people in the country are saying, 'Who is this Malcolm Turnbull?' He has lost his sense of self. They have no idea who he is. He has sold out on all of his principles, and we know that he has done that to the far right of the Liberal party. Today, we hear that Mr Turnbull is about going back on his word again on 18C. For months he has been saying that he will not relent on this policy. He said, 'The balance is right on 18C.' So what has he done again? He has done another backflip to appease the right within his party. Mr Turnbull will do and say anything to remain Prime Minister. We know that the numbers are being counted on that side. The problem is that there is not a clear candidate. Otherwise, Mr Turnbull would meet the same fate as Mr Abbott did. That is the state of play with this government.

There have been a number of thought bubbles. If you recall not so very long ago the Prime Minister went out and said, 'Oh, there is a thought bubble; let's increase the GST to 15 percent on everything.' Then, because they finally understood that the community would not support that, he let that thought bubble go again, and it went floating off. But it landed in Western Australia. Then we had the Liberal Premier of Western Australia wanting a bigger share of the GST.