Katy Gallagher (ACT, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

enator GALLAGHER (—) (): The Labor Party will be supporting the suspension. Whilst we agree with the Leader of the Government in the Senate that there are important matters before this chamber this week, the competence and capability of the government is right at the top of that list. It gives us no pleasure to say that this is a government that has given up governing, and we have no confidence in this government.

The reason it gives me no pleasure is because, by saying that, we are letting the Australian people down—the Australian people, who rely on government to help them, to give them a hand up and to fix their problems. The government have gone missing. They are so disunified: fighting each other, leaking against each other, attacking their leader, telling the truth about their leader, wanting the Australian people to know what they really think—and, while they're doing that, they're not looking after the Australian people and all the problems that the Australian people are feeling now. There are problems in aged care, where the situation is so dire, with thousands infected with COVID, hundreds dying and staff not able to perform their jobs.

That's the real world out there. People are worried about COVID. People are worried about their kids. People are worried about getting access to the booster. These are people's real worries: how they pay to fill their car up, how they buy their groceries, how they meet the rising cost of living. These are the problems that are out there. The Australian people deserve a government that's going to turn up every day and work on their behalf, and we haven't seen any evidence of that for months from this government. They're missing in action, and their disunity and failure to govern has real-life consequences for the Australian people. That is what angers us, and that is why we are supporting this today. We have no confidence. The Australian people are fast losing any remnant of confidence they had, waking up to stories about psychos and horrible, horrible men and liars and hypocrites and to stories about infighting. They don't want to hear about that. They want a government in place that's going to deal with the real challenges facing this country.

We, as others already have, can go through the list of failures of this government: the rorts; the waste; the billions of dollars of taxpayer funds that have gone into political sandbagging of seats; the climate wars' nine years of inaction and scaremongering, leaving it to future generations to deal with a much bigger issue and a much bigger problem; the constant lying by the Prime Minister; the failure to take responsibility—world leaders have called him out, for goodness' sake; his deputy has called him out—the COVID response; the lack of access to rapid antigen tests. How many of us, as representatives of our communities, have experienced that over summer? No-one could get a RAT and, at the same time, we were being told that you had to get yourself tested if you wanted to do anything. That was fine if you were able to. It was a massive failure. The aged-care minister hopped off to the cricket. I don't have a problem with people going to the cricket—I love the cricket—but I do have a problem with Australia's aged-care minister going to the cricket when people are dying, people are not getting fed, people are not able to have a bath or a shower and staff working there are having the most horrendous experiences. I do have a problem with that. Then I have a Prime Minister who says, 'That's okay. Sure, he copped that criticism; no problem,' while the system is in crisis and falling apart.

We in this place are used to the leadership failures of this Prime Minister. We see them every single day: bushfires, vaccines, aged care, the failure to take responsibility, the blame-shifting to the states—'it's not our fault; it's theirs'—not being straight with people, changing his answer. I remember him saying, 'I really did like electric vehicles. I never said they were going to end the weekend.' Yes, you did, so many times. This is the standard we have set at the top of this government. There is disunity. They cannot solve problems for people if they are too busy fighting themselves, and that is what we are seeing. This Prime Minister is out of touch. He has no understanding of how to deal with the challenges facing the Australian people. They've even given up pretending to govern on behalf of the people of Australia and they should call the election now.