Doug Cameron (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Human Services) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Employment (Senator Cash) to questions without notice asked by Senators Cameron and Watt today relating to the minister’s attendance before supplementary Budget estimates hearings of the Education and Employment Legislation Committee.1 Motions to take note of answers

This is a minister with no credibility, this is a minister who has misled the parliament on at least five occasions, this is a minister who refuses to accept any accountability and this is a minister who uses every opportunity in this place to slander decent working people while she presents herself in this place by hiding, by not answering any questions and by not being accountable to the Senate. This minister is an absolute disgrace. This minister sacrificed her own minder, one of her own senior staff, to save her own skin. That's what this minister did. She has got no credibility and no capacity to stand up here and argue any point on industrial relations portfolios, because she is an absolute fraud. She will be found out. She can run all she likes, as she is running out of the chamber now—she can run out of the chamber, but she will be held accountable. She will be held accountable by the Labor Party and she will be held accountable by the Senate because this minister has basically misled this place on at least five occasions.

The minister gets up today, when workers have been locked out by their employer for month after month in Queensland, and simply regurgitates a rumour based on no evidence, saying that workers in a small town claimed that they would rape the children of any worker who didn't support strike action. That's the level that this minister has got to. She has no credibility and absolutely no sense of decency. If she had any sense of decency whatsoever, she would be providing her resignation to the Senate now. When we see good people leaving the Senate and we see Senator Cash still here, it is no wonder the public is sickened by this rabble opposite, led by a weak Prime Minister. She comes in here day after day making up allegations against trade union leaders and against workers defending their jobs and defending their right to put food on the table for their family after being locked out for month after month.

This minister has got no right to be here after misleading the Senate the way she has. She has not gone anywhere near ministerial accountability. She has not gone anywhere near being accountable to the Senate. She has simply mouthed here allegations that there are no proof of. What she wants to do every time she is asked a serious question is to try and denigrate Labor members, trade unionists and workers out there trying to defend their job. That is common for this mob over here. This lot don't care about workers' rights or decency in the workplace. They simply want workers to be subdued by the employer, come to work every day and accept what the employer says. That's the style of this mob over here.

For a minister to come here and refuse to answer any questions—this is a minister who can't keep her mouth shut when she is on her feet attacking trade unions. But when she is asked a question about her credibility, about her behaviour, she can't sit down quick enough. She has absolutely no credibility as a minister and absolutely no credibility as a member of the government. She will continue to mislead this Senate because she has got nowhere to go. She was offered, day after day, to come and make herself accountable, and she has refused to do so. She has got no courage, no commitment to the Senate, no credibility as a minister. She is a disgrace and she should resign. (Time expired)