Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

I'm sure that when academics write stories about oppositions and how they deal with election losses somebody will grab hold of the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief. For the information of those not familiar with it, that framework says that a person goes through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then acceptance.

What is required in a system where, essentially, there are two parties of government to get an opposition party match fit, to be up to it? I think there are six stages—denial, overreach, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This week we are in the overreach stage. Long may it continue, because the longer it goes on, the longer it's going to take Mr Morrison's leftovers over there to get themselves into shape to deal with the real issues for Australian people. We are clearly, 16 months in, seeing an opposition that don't understand the decision that the Australian people made, that haven't reflected upon the gravity of the errors that they made in government, because they are reaching too early for the little things and trying to make them big things. That's what this week has been all about.

Now, the decision that Minister Catherine King took in relation to Qatar Airways was done in the normal course of events. In fact, it was a decision that one of her predecessors, Mr McCormack, had made in exactly the same way with no controversy at all, with no complaint. In fact, applications for alterations to bilateral arrangements for access to Australian airports by countries and airlines happen all the time. The truth is, as Minister Wong said here earlier this week, it is not a free-for-all. Competition is not a free-for-all. There are a wide sweep of issues that must be considered when balancing the competitive issues with the safety and security issues and with the other series of national interest questions. Minister King has made it completely clear that the decision she made was in the national interest, in the normal course of events, as Australians would expect.

I see that Senator McKenzie, while unwisely including a reference to special-purpose aircraft in her motion, wisely decided not to spend any time on it in her speech in this debate. I'll just say that, if you want to spend some time on that, it's going to be a pretty wild old ride if we spend time on special aircraft flights, coming from the party that formed government when the Morrison government refused to release any details of special-purpose aircraft flights taken in the last 16 months of that sorry period of government.

Their current leader, Mr Dutton, released absolutely no information about the use of special-purpose aircraft during his sorry tenure as the Minister for Defence. Unlike those opposite, we have restarted publishing information. We are publishing the information that we have been advised to publish and that reflects the very clear advice of our security agencies. That's not unimportant, and a disregard for that is another illustration of why those opposite are unfit to be making a claim on being the alternative government of Australia.

Senator McKenzie wanted to talk about productivity. It's like Idi Amin expressing a sudden interest in human rights! When the other side were in government, they had 10 years of the worst productivity growth on record—in Australian history. And 15 months later, they hope that everybody has forgotten. The business community hasn't forgotten. The trade union movement hasn't forgotten. None of the economic institutions have forgotten. It can't be washed away that easily by carrying on about it. She said that the decision that Minister King had made would apparently cause $1 billion of difference for our Gross Domestic Product. That is the most un-mathematical, silly claim. Why not say $1 trillion? What's after a trillion? Why not just make up numbers that make no sense? What you have to do—for those of you listening at home—is take the three airports, multiply them by seven days, multiply them by the number of the weeks and figure it out. How many dollars does she think that every flight—there you go, some of the team over they are doing it—impacts on the national accounts? It is the silliest proposition.

There was a declaration from Senator McKenzie that the Minister should reveal the contents of her discussions with a foreign power and outline all of the national interest reasons that she had engaged in, in order to make a set of decisions in the Australian national interest. This is coming from the outfit that in the last sorry term of government, when there was a disagreement with the government of France, the then prime minister of Australia released the text messages to a newspaper. I haven't seen anything in my short period here that has done more damage to the credibility of Australian political leadership on the international stage than that vainglorious, silly, shortsighted, self-interested piece of work from Mr Morrison. We're not going to take any lectures from this outfit on the appropriate conduct of international relations.

Then I come to the motion itself. It includes Senator McKenzie's name, it references transparency and accountability, and then it goes on to use phrase 'rank hypocrisy'. The gravitational force of those phrases all arriving into the same sentence would suck in solar systems. It is inconceivable that a person who had a moment's self-reflection could hop out, get into the office, write that in an e-mail and send it off. This is the same Senator McKenzie—or maybe I'm wrong—who was responsible for the sports rorts saga, isn't it? By all means, come in here and lecture people about transparency and accountability—that's leading with your chin. But then to say it's 'rank hypocrisy', it can't be allowed to stand. It is the wildest proposition, and it underscores how silly this whole week has been from the coalition parties, the apparent alternative parties of government. Senator McKenzie was out there before the general business notice of motion. What have I done, Senator Smith?