Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Families and Communities) Share this | Hansard source

Those who do not learn from history are doomed to repeat it. So said Winston Churchill, and he was paraphrasing a philosopher from the previous century. You might have thought that the Wentworth by-election would have presented an opportunity to learn something from history, because after the Wentworth by-election they all piled on—all of those conservatives, all of those people in the hard right—didn't they? Despite the fact that voters came to the polling booths wanting to talk about climate change, wanting to talk about the cuts to the ABC and the attacks on the ABC, wanting to talk about our international obligations and wanting to talk about a fair and decent Australia, the conservatives in the Liberal Party learnt nothing from that election. They went away and they determined that what they would do is double down. They would continue with the race baiting, the culture wars and the petty internecine feuds within the Liberal Party that are all about dragging that organisation over into a part of Australian politics that barely has a base, so extreme is it. That was their lesson. There was no teachable moment at the Wentworth by-election for this crowd. They just decided to double down.

They've had another opportunity presented to them in Victoria on the weekend. This same set of nasty, mean-spirited, small-minded attitudes was on display throughout the entirety of the Victorian campaign, and those attitudes were utterly repudiated by Victorians. There is some public reflection going on, and Senator Smith said he'd take the observations that come from his Victorian colleagues. Well, I point him to some of them. No less than our Senate President, Scott Ryan, said, 'Our voters sent us a message, and that is that some of the noise that comes out of this place and some of the noise that comes out of commentators about what it means to be Liberal—Liberal voters want us to focus on their issues.' He went on to say that the party was losing its electoral base, who didn't want conservative views rammed down their throats.

The former Liberal MP, Ms Banks, who's now an Independent member for Chisholm, explained that they'd been led by members of the reactionary right wing and that the coup was aided by many MPs trading their vote for a leadership change in exchange for promotion, preselection or silence. 'Their actions were undeniably for themselves,' she said. She's speaking about a hard core of people who want to use the institutions of the parliament and their party for their own advancement rather than for the interests of the Australian people.

But the thing that comes through most strongly in the public discussion by Liberals in Victoria is a focus on climate and energy. This is the signature failure of this government over the last five years. Ms O'Dwyer is reported to have told colleagues that the Liberals are now widely regarded as homophobic, anti-women climate-change deniers. The member for Goldstein, Mr Wilson, was even clearer, saying, 'If anybody thinks there is a great public sentiment out there that people hate renewables and they're hugging coal, I say: get real.'

The very sad thing for the Liberal Party, if they truly reflected on the history of the last five years, is that they've had plenty of opportunities. As the Labor Party, we wanted to establish a bipartisan energy policy that could deal with climate change. We offered bipartisanship. We offered it in relation to the energy intensity scheme proposed by Mr Frydenberg. We offered it in relation to the clean energy target, which was proposed by Dr Finkel, who spent a great deal of time examining the energy system. We certainly offered it in relation to the NEG, a policy that they put through their party room and then walked away from. And we offer it still, because what business will tell you—business will tell anyone who listens—is that all they need is certainty in relation to energy policy.

There is an investment strike on at the moment. We have ageing energy facilities operating past their use-by date, and they need to be replaced. But no private sector investor wants to act at the moment because this government, over five years, has been incapable of producing any clear energy policy. In that environment, investors have gone on strike. That is what has driven prices up. That is what all of the organisations paid to advise us tell us. And until they take the opportunity to collaborate, they will continue to fail on this front. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.