Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I think everyone in this chamber recognises that the summer we've seen has been one of the most dreadful on record, particularly in relation to the bushfires that this country has seen. Yesterday, of course, we devoted the day to a condolence motion to recognise those who lost their lives in these fires—33 Australians, including nine firefighters—and I commend everyone on the speeches that they made yesterday.

During my contribution to that debate, I recognised that a condolence motion was not the place to talk about some of the gross failures of leadership that we saw from the Prime Minister and this government in the lead-up to the fires, during the fires and in their response to the fires, but I did say that it is something that needs to be discussed. This government does need to be held to account for its failures in relation to these fires, and I intend to use this debate to do that today.

The truth is that this Prime Minister, Mr Morrison, displayed an unbelievable lack of leadership before, during and after the bushfires. As has been said by many commentators and many Australians that I've spoken to, natural disasters and other significant events tend to be the time when our leaders actually stand up. That's when leadership tends to come to the fore. Even people who would otherwise be seen as fairly mediocre leaders find an extra gear during national disasters and really demonstrate leadership, pull the nation or their state together and show a way forward. They inspire people, ensure that people have the confidence and the comfort to know that they can get through it, and then forge a path out of those disasters or other significant events afterwards.

Some of the better leaders that Australia has seen have come to the fore during natural disasters. Even just in recent times there was Kevin Rudd during the Black Saturday fires and Anna Bligh during the 2011 Queensland floods. It's been done on all sides of politics. I will give John Howard credit for the leadership that he showed after the Port Arthur massacre. Even during these fires, we have seen incredible leadership from a number of figures—again, not restricted to one side of politics. The New South Wales Premier, Gladys Berejiklian, I think has been recognised as having demonstrated leadership; the Victorian Premier, Daniel Andrews, I think has been recognised similarly. Of course, some of the officials in charge of the response to the fires, including Shane Fitzsimmons, the head of the Rural Fire Service in New South Wales, and so many ordinary Australians have shown leadership. Whether they be firefighters, volunteers who have fed the firefighters and done other volunteering jobs or people who've cared for wildlife, so many ordinary Australians whose names we will never know have shown true leadership through these fires.

But there was one person who the entire nation would have expected to demonstrate leadership during these fires who comprehensively failed to do so. Of course, that was the Prime Minister. If there is one person in this country that you would expect to show leadership during an almost nationwide natural disaster, it's the Prime Minister. But what did we see from this Prime Minister? In the lead-up to the fires, he did nothing to prevent them. In the planning and the preparation for these fires, as is so often the case with this do-nothing government, he did nothing. When the fires hit, he went missing in action—unseen, unavailable and nothing to say to the Australian people. When he did eventually have to face up to what was happening with these fires, rather than take responsibility, he tried to blame others and, as we have come to expect from this Prime Minister, he was loose with the truth. He demonstrated the very opposite of leadership.

Again, this is not something that has just been observed by people who are political opponents of the Prime Minister. A recent opinion piece by Niki Savva, a former adviser to Liberal governments, said:

Elections are not tests of prime ministers. They are tests of politicians and their campaign skills. Scott Morrison passed that with honours last May. National crises are the true tests of prime ministers and leadership. The sad truth is that Morrison faltered and stumbled, miserably, sometimes seemingly wilfully, at almost every critical point during this rotten summer beginning with his ill-­advised holiday to Hawaii.

That was not a Labor person. That was one of the Liberal Party's long-time advisers with an absolutely scathing assessment of this Prime Minister's leadership.

I understand today the Prime Minister was asked what he learned about leadership over the summer. His response was: 'Always to listen, always show up and always put Australians first.' My question is: why did it take a natural disaster for this Prime Minister to learn that leadership involves listening to people? Why did it take a disaster that has claimed the lives of 33 people for this Prime Minister to learn that leadership means showing up? Why did it take the loss of 3,000 homes, one billion animals and over 10 million hectares of bushland for the Prime Minister to learn that leadership means putting Australians first?

This is not just political rhetoric. The Prime Minister's lack of leadership has had serious consequences. His actions, his lack of leadership, placed Australians at risk, placed our economy at risk and placed our environment at risk. The truth is that this Prime Minister comprehensively failed the test of leadership in planning for the bushfires, in responding to the bushfires and, as we are already seeing, in recovering from these bushfires.

Time does not permit me to go through every example of that failure of leadership from the Prime Minister, but I will remind the Senate of some of the more notable ones. When it comes to the planning and preparation for these bushfires, the Prime Minister cannot say that he wasn't warned that this was coming. One of the things that came out over the Christmas break was that the incoming government briefs from the Department of Home Affairs provided to the government after the May election warned about the serious risk this country faced from bushfires. So, if they didn't know about it before the election, they certainly did afterwards. The CRC for bushfire and natural disaster research, which the government hasn't committed funding to into the future, issued its August outlook and warned of an above-average fire risk for Australia this bushfire season.

Then, of course, there were the ex fire chiefs who repeatedly sought to meet with the Prime Minister to inform him of the risk that we faced and provide him with some solutions about what could be done to mitigate that risk. They wrote to the Prime Minister in April, seeking a meeting. They never got a response. They wrote to the Prime Minister again in September—no response. And he still hasn't met with them. Even after these fires, he's not willing to swallow his pride and meet with people, dozens of people, who have decades of experience in fighting these kinds of fires.