Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Defence (Senator Payne) to a question without notice asked by Senator Bilyk today relating to energy policy.

Oh my goodness me, what an absolute shemozzle we are seeing in this nation at the moment. I honestly don't think Hollywood could have done any better at putting out a couple of fictional episodes as the very poor show that we've seen, particularly in the last few days. Here we are going into a national debate on energy, which we've been in for about 10 years. On Tuesday morning we saw beamed live on our TV screens, and then the front pages of the next day's papers, the Prime Minister out there with Minister Frydenberg saying, 'We have locked away the national energy agreement, the NEG. It's is locked in. Everyone's backed it in. Here we go full steam ahead'. I think that lasted about 10 or 15 minutes. I'm not sure what version we're up to now.

The total dysfunction of this government has actually got to the stage where it's embarrassing. It's been embarrassing for a number of years. I'm asking: who's seen this movie before? I certainly have. I can't believe it's an instant replay. Here we go again. It's the same culprits. What a bunch of backstabbing people. You wouldn't want these people anywhere near you, let alone behind you. The Prime Minister and the minister are out there saying, 'What a great job we've done. We are going to lower household electricity prices'. Then in the next instant it's led by the member for Warringah and Senator Abetz—these are the usual suspects, there's a whole gaggle of them. Then there's the usual suspects like Mr Christensen and that fellow who keeps popping up on Sky News, Mr Kelly. Seriously, Barnum and Bailey's couldn't match this outfit. It's absolutely unbelievable. While the rest of Australia sits back and thinks, 'What the hell is going on in Canberra?'

And then, as I'm walking down to question time, there's Senator Molan with his homemade video—'Look at me! Look at me!' I thought I was watching Australia's Funniest Home Videos, but he was fair dinkum. He was talking into a microphone and a camera on his iPhone. But he hasn't made his decision; he'll have a look at it. He can speak for himself, but he's guaranteed the small audience that happened to walk past ABC Radio at the same time as me that a decision will be made today. My goodness me!

Then we have—here we go!—the fixer, Mr Christopher Pyne, who, on this morning's radio—I'm really not making this up, seriously, but I needed this to keep the adrenaline going—actually said that the Liberal government is doing a magnificent job.