Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

That's a really good question. Day after day in this place, what we see from this government is complete contempt for the Australian people; complete contempt for any form of transparency, integrity or accountability; and complete contempt for the way they treat this Senate. The number of questions outstanding is 1,192.

Let's now turn to how they answer the questions that they are asked, and I refer to question 1788, asked on 31 March 2023. Senator James Paterson asked Minister Shorten, the Minister for the National Disability Insurance Scheme, a very simple question: 'Has the minister, the minister's office or the minister's department met with any representative et cetera of Anacta Strategies Ltd in relation to TikTok, either in person, via videoconference or by phone? If so, what was the date, time and duration of the meeting?' I would have thought that you'd have a quick whip around the office to find out whether you had or you hadn't. If you hadn't, you could submit straightaway, and, if you had, then you'd flick through the diary and—guess what?—you'd see the date, time and duration of the meeting. Instead, what we got from Minister Shorten was quite frankly an absolute disgrace. He has given a political answer to what is an incredibly serious question.

But what's worse is that, in giving his political answer, he tried to trash the record of former prime minister John Howard. On any analysis, John Howard was a prime minister who presided over the largest and most successful times of Australia, for Australia and for Australians, since the postwar period. There are many Australians out there who, to this day, will come up to me when I'm in the street or walking through a shopping centre and will say: 'The biggest mistake I ever made in 2007 was believing the 'Rudd 2007' hype. It's the biggest mistake I ever made, and I've been paying for it ever since.' But, in making the answer political, this is what he said, 'John Howard became only the second Prime Minister in Australian history to suffer the ignominy of being rejected by his own electors when he was unceremoniously dumped.'

Let's just compare Mr Howard's record to Mr Shorten's record. If Mr Shorten wants to be political, maybe he needs to be reminded that Mr Howard was elected by the people four times. Mr Howard served as Prime Minister of this nation for almost 12 years. Mr Shorten was rejected by the Australian people in 2016. Mr Shorten was rejected by the Australian people in 2019. Then he was rejected by those on the other side—dumped. They didn't want him as the Leader of the Opposition: 'You failed twice. You're not taking us to another election.' He now gets to stand next to Mr Albanese, and it must gut him every time he's got to look at Mr Albanese and say: 'Mr Prime Minister'. So, if you want to get political in your answers, if you want to compare a record, we will proudly compare John Howard's record with Mr Bill Shorten's any day of the week.