Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am pleased to be able to make a contribution in this Matters of Public Importance debate on the inability of a divided, unstable and illegitimate Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government to govern for all Australians. If we were to start with the first—divided—the evidence is reasonably clear. If you move from the Hon. Tony Abbott to the Hon. Malcolm Turnbull to the Hon. Scott Morrison in a reasonably short space of time, then you very clearly have a lack of majority support for the elected Prime Minister throughout the term of their government. I think it is very clear that the Hon. Tony Abbott has been the best opposition leader in the country—and he didn't refute that claim; he merely acknowledged it with a wry smile. Since being deposed, there has been clear unequivocal division right throughout the Turnbull prime ministership.

And there has been abundantly clear instability. Take one brief example of that. The minister says he has a deal on the NEG. The Prime Minister says, 'I have the support of my party room; no problem.' Questions across the chamber here in question time allude to those detractors from the policy, who say, 'Don't worry about that. It's been through the party room.' Not only was it not unequivocally supported, despite the claims to the contrary, it was dumped. I think that happened on Tuesday in the party room and, by Friday, it was dead and buried. They probably threw out the minister at the same time because he was still arguing that it was a good policy after it was dumped—quite an incongruous position.

It is exceedingly clear that the evidence about division is uncontested. You cannot contest that this period of coalition government has been divided. 'Unstable' is a very kind word for what's been happening. They've white-anted, they've undermined and they have detracted from ordinary delivery of government services with their bitter, ceaseless infighting in this period of government. It would all be quite entertaining if it weren't actually so serious and if the consequences for the average Australian were not so severe.

A few moments ago in taking note, I alluded to one of the problems we get when we cancel COAG. COAG was actually going to look at something which all Australian electors, of whatever political persuasion, would want fixed. There are 173 young people in aged-care facilities and this was one of the issues that was going to be alleviated, decided or helped along in the COAG process. This is where COAG needs to look at how the NDIS fits in with the health system to make sure we don't have young people falling through the cracks. So this is one tiny microcosm of the myriad problems that the government faces: 173 young people falling through the cracks of the NDIS system and not being treated appropriately because of the inability of this government to be unified, cohesive and the like.

I put on the record, and I'll put it on the record again, that, since I have been appointed as the deputy chair of the oversight committee for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, there have been quite a number of ministers—