Kimberley Kitching (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a coalition of chaos we have opposite. The Prime Minister has cancelled next month's COAG. There won't be one until December now. But, lest we think that that was a level of dysfunctionality, in the other place in question time, the Prime Minister said, 'We can't have COAG on 4 October because we're having a drought summit on 26 October.' Two meetings at both ends of the month—it's a little bit hard to handle when you're so dysfunctional.

The Prime Minister can't get any clear air because there are so many things going on in the Treasury benches. He can't get any clear air because Liberal woman after Liberal woman has come forward to complain about a culture of bullying and intimidation within the Liberal Party. He can't get any clear air because his cabinet colleagues keep leaking documents and policy initiatives. He can't get any clear air because they keep moving the deckchairs around, and he can't get any clear air because everyone's so concerned with watching to see how many ministers are wearing their Australian-flag lapel badges.

Going back to the bullying complaints, the latest woman to come forward was the member for Gilmore, who said there was behaviour from 'boys who should know better'. The Liberal Party has, of course, decried the use of quotas, or maybe it's just the word 'quota'—it's a little bit unclear for everyone else at the moment—although, the Liberal Party disproves its own current argument on quotas because it has had quotas since 1944. When Sir Robert Menzies was looking to match the ALP's support base, he went to the inheritors of the suffragette movement—some of the largest women's community groups of that time. Those women struck a hard bargain—if only that were the case in this day and age. They said, 'If you want our numbers, we want fifty-fifty quotas throughout the Liberal Party organisation,' and Sir Robert Menzies agreed. Now, though, this party that started out so well has gone backwards. They are moving so far backwards that, in fact, after the next election, because they haven't preselected any women, they are likely to have fewer women than the Saudi Arabian legislature, and that is a disgrace. It was a party that started out so well but has now become a party where so many women feel shut out.

What does the Prime Minister do with these complaints? Does he listen, does he acknowledge these complaints and does he acknowledge that his party has gone backwards? No. What he does is he tries to offshore these women. He's offered the New York United Nations post to the member for Chisholm. She rejected it. Now he's offered it to the member for Gilmore. She's considering it. But it's pretty insulting to use a posting as a 'there, there, don't worry' consolation prize. But fear not, because the Prime Minister did say he's 100 per cent confident that bullying is not a problem in the Liberal Party. That's good to know—and oh so convincing! Of course, that was a couple of days ago. Now he's asked a Liberal Party organisation to investigate the member for Gilmore's complaints. That was yesterday. I guess we need to wait until tomorrow to see what happens with those complaints and whether there's actually going to be any action taken.

In another shooting-in-the-foot incident, the Prime Minister self-described the coalition as a muppet show. The Muppet Show, we could say, is a vaudeville variety act, and that's what we've been seeing for the last few months. Just as a fun exercise, let's ask ourselves: which muppet character does the Prime Minister mostly resemble? Is it the straight man Kermit the Frog? No, because Kermit actually gets the show running and keeps it running. I'm not sure we can say that about the Prime Minister. Also, Kermie would probably never use Fatman Scoop's lyrics to be put to such a discombobulating use. Is he Miss Piggy? No, because they don't really encourage women over there on the treasury bench, and Miss Piggy is quite a forceful personality, so it's probably quite unlikely she would ever get preselected in the first place. Is he Statler or Waldorf? No, I think that might be Senator Macdonald or Senator O'Sullivan—although, having said that, I don't believe those senators have a proprietary ownership on that type of personality. Maybe he's Gonzo. You know Gonzo—Gonzo who plays the end of the opening song, but it never quite goes to plan. He never manages to quite hit the right note. I feel that Gonzo is probably our Prime Minister.

One of the great Labor prime ministers said in 1990 about a hopelessly divided Liberal Party, 'If you can't govern yourselves, you can't govern the country.' He said it as a qualifying standard—a pre-election test for any party seeking to govern. Nearly three decades on, we see the truth of Bob Hawke's assertion, for this great, exceptional country and this prosperous, productive, culturally diverse and inclusive society is governed by the worst of the worst—by B-graders, rank amateurs, petty squabblers and backstabbers.

This government aren't governing. This great, exceptional country—the envy of our neighbours, a beacon of strength in our region with so much opportunity and so much promise and potential—is governed by a government literally without an agenda. In fact, they've moved legislation off the agenda today, literally filibustering their own legislation, and they've deferred COAG meetings because they have nothing to say. This government isn't governing. This great, exceptional country, which rightly spends billions on our national defence and on border protection, is revealed to have an immigration minister who, while he pretended to be a tough cop on the beat of our border, was in fact secretly allowing Liberal donors and mates to smuggle in illegal workers to work as their servants. The tough cop on the beat of our border has been revealed to be nothing more than, essentially, a people smuggler for the aid and comfort of Liberal donors and mates. The government aren't governing.

We have a coalition that disagree on nearly everything except hating each other, hating unions, cutting essential social services and appointing mates to government boards, tribunals and embassies. And let's not forget that the Prime Minister doesn't like Tasmanians either. The government aren't governing. They disagree about energy. They have no credible energy policy. They have had multiple proposals and can never agree on them. Margaret Thatcher, however briefly, once exhorted us to deal with the challenge of climate change. The government have refused to countenance four energy policies in nine years. Silicon Valley's cutthroat venture capital industry, as keen on profit as any other investor, is applying tens of billions of dollars of capital to improving renewable energy technology. Yet, this do-nothing, deeply confused, totally self-obsessed government regard Margaret Thatcher's green period and the world capital markets as mad lefties embarking on a renewables rampage. You don't even have to accept the scientific consensus on climate to embrace the simple fact that the sun, the wind and the waves don't cost us anything to use as a form of power. They disagree about tax. They disagree about complying with our international treaty obligations, like the Paris accord. They disagree about leadership. They disagree about My Health. They disagree about so many issues.

Australians don't expect miracles out of Canberra. But we do expect our leaders to put the national interest first. We do expect our leaders to insist on clean, accountable government that is willing to explain its decisions: explain the visas it grants, explains the grants it gifts to environmental groups, and explain its policies and its agenda for the future. We do expect our leaders to be focused on the kind of country we leave to the next generation.

That's why I believe, should Labor earn the trust of the Australian people at the next election, that a Shorten Labor government will address the big issues confronting all of us: maintaining Australian prosperity, ensuring Australians share in that prosperity with a decently paying job or the help they need, holding together the great social infrastructure that keeps Australia the most liveable place on the planet, defending our land from polluters within and enemies without, and ensuring that our country always passes the toughest test. That test is set out for all of us in Matthew, chapter 25, verse 40:

Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.

The single most important measure of our society is how we treat the vulnerable: the single mum with kids struggling to make ends meet; the elderly man in a nursing home with no visitors and no voice; and our most recent arrivals, who so desperately want to succeed here and will, if we give them a chance.

That's why I'm here. I think there are many in this country who look on with horror at this government and wonder why they are here—for this government isn't governing. This exceptional country, with its magnificent people, deserves a government that works as hard as Australians do. We shouldn't have to wait for this government to crawl its way to the latest date an election can be held, but it seems we will have to. (Time expired)