Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do. I get my shire seats confused sometimes. Their boundaries change so often that it's sometimes difficult to know whether you're in Cook or whether you're in Hughes. Sometimes their local members appear indistinguishable, and one wonders whether the views of their local members are the same. Why would Mr Morrison have fought so hard to get this climate-denying, hydroxychloroquine conspiracy theorist back into the parliament over the views of locals otherwise? It's hard to understand.

Mr Kelly, of course, threatened to go to the crossbench—arguably, where he belongs. He's done enormous damage to the standing of the Liberal Party, and the damage continues. He has spent a significant part of his parliamentary career on late-night television as an avid climate denialist. He's probably done more than anybody in the House of Representatives to wreck successive governments' efforts to have a coherent energy policy in Australia. If you're worried about power bills going up, think about Craig Kelly and his climate denialism. If you're worried about emissions going up, think about the member for Hughes. If you're worried about investment in generation capacity going down, you can think about Mr Kelly again. He's done more than anybody else.

But, more concerning, more immediate is his conduct and behaviour in relation to conspiracy theories that undermine the public health effort. Last week he was promoting theories in relation to 'compulsory COVID vaccinations for everybody coming soon', which he posted. 'No, you are not dreaming, and this is not a sci-fi novel,' he said. That video's title, shared by the biggest oversharer of far-right memes in Australian politics, is, 'Bill Gates Says Everyone Has To Get His Vaccination'. The week before, he said that the Premier of Victoria should go to prison for 25 years.

There hasn't been a moment where the Minister for Health or the Prime Minister has rebuked Mr Kelly. No-one in the leadership of the Liberal Party has made any effort to send out a clear message that these sorts of ideas are rejected by the leadership and by the parliament in here. Nobody has done it. So you do wonder what the commitment of the Liberal Party and the National Party really is to science, what the commitment of the Liberal Party and the National Party really is to evidence and what the commitment of the Liberal Party and the National Party really is to focusing on the real needs and public confidence in the public health effort that is so needed to fight back against the COVID-19 virus.

Mr Kelly is more protected than the koala bear. His meme was shared by Mr Evans, a cook, who is an avid conspiracy theorist about 5G and all sorts of things. The health minister has declined to comment. Last week, there was an enormous effort in the House of Representatives to defend Mr Kelly from a censure motion brought on by Mr Bowen. Instead of rejecting this madness, the government has shielded Mr Kelly from criticism. Instead of clarifying the issues, the government has obscured the issues.

If Scott Morrison and the Liberal Party won't act in the interests of science and evidence, the school system becomes even more important. School students should leave school with the skills and the facts and critical thinking capacity to be able to reject this kind of behaviour. I have enormous respect for teachers all over the country who are working hard in our schools to deliver an inclusive and excellent education. The Liberal Party and the National Party think that teachers are the enemy, part of some cultural Marxist plot to undermine educational standards. We should be elevating teachers and supporting them, not denigrating them in this place.

There is a base political strategy at operation here. It's all about donations and clicks on the internet. It's not just a One Nation strategy; there are members of the government parties who engage in this behaviour, who want to frighten people and want to encourage fear and division. They make wild claims about what is taught in our schools, which on closer examination turn out not to be true. But the modus operandi is to just keep making the claim. The claim is made. It is refuted. And then we move on to the next claim. There is a bewildering blizzard of misinformation out there. The purpose here is not to change the law. The purpose is to add to the confusion. The Minister for Education should be there in the House of Representatives setting the record straight, and his representative here should be doing the same thing.

Haven't we made progress on some of these questions? Many Australians are uncomfortable with frank discussions of sex and gender. Fair enough. But the dial has shifted in the right direction. Kids feel included. They feel loved and looked after in our schools. Why on earth are people in this place making it harder? Why on earth are we trying to shift the dial back from acceptance to rejection? I realise that I've run out of time—