James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

In joining this very illustrative and quite deep philosophical debate, I would like to contribute by observing that the answers given by ministers to the questions asked by my coalition colleagues were characterised by their lack of detail and their lack of information and, quite frankly, by just not answering the questions at all. If anything, question time today was a caricature of the government of Australia that we have at the moment: a government that is tricky, a government that is not fulsome with the truth, if I am allowed to say that—

I will take the interjection from Senator Duniam—a government who runs from accountability and runs from transparency.

Senator Ciccone touched upon the very important debate that started last night in relation to the Safeguard Mechanism (Crediting) Amendment Bill 2023. It is disappointing—it is actually quite sad—that the journalists and people in this building were not able to hear my contribution at three o'clock this morning, because it was a very good contribution, if I may say so myself. This is what this government is about. They're using the guillotine like mad members of revolutionary fronts. They are guillotining everything because they don't want transparency and they don't want accountability, and they do not want the opposition to be able to use this chamber as the appropriate mechanism by which to analyse and discuss our views on a very, very challenging piece of legislation. It was disappointing that members of the Liberal and National parties were forced to give their speeches beyond the witching hour, and that is sad. It shows the arrogance of this government, who will do dirty deals in the dark, dirty deals behind closed doors, dirty deals done behind closed doors with darkened windows, in relation to the governance of this country but also the management of this chamber.

What is particularly disappointing about question time today and the debate last night is that the No. 1 issue in Australia at the moment is the cost of living. The Labor Party and their coalition partners, the Greens, fail to appreciate how the cost of living is hurting Australians. And their solution is not just a new tax, the carbon tax 2.0; it is a giant, throbbing tax, a massive tax that they're going to pick up in their hands and chase after every Australian and every Australian family and whack them over the heads with. What we've seen from this government is that they're giving a giant wedgie to Australians through their secret deals with the Greens, and that is wrong. It is wrong that they would treat Australians so poorly. It is wrong that they would treat this chamber so poorly when it comes to allowing opposition members to question giant wedgies—because that's what the Labor government are doing to Australians: giving everybody a giant wedgie.

What they're failing to let us question is the wedgie that is coming with people's power bills. This government promised 97 times before the last election that it would cut your power bills by $275—97 times. It wasn't that the Prime Minister had a verbal burp and accidentally said something. This was a deliberate tactic. They get into power and, instead of cutting your bills by $275, what the October budget showed was that power bills are going to go up by 56 per cent over the coming months. This is the modern Labor Party. They talk about the light on the hill, but guess what: there is no light on the hill, because people can't afford to pay the power bill for the light on the hill. This is how the modern Labor Party have sold out working Australians and businesses across Australia, and this is why we will spend every day, every hour and every minute making sure that you own what happened last night and this morning in this chamber.

Question agreed to.