Gerard Rennick (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a disgraceful effort by the Labor Albanese government in the first 16 months of its term. It has wasted $400 million on a divisive referendum that has sought to undermine democracy. Those same people talk about giving people a voice and everything like that—well, the people spoke on the weekend. And what did the Labor state premiers do? They turned around on Monday and said, 'Well, we're going to push ahead with a treaty anyway.' The member for Gaven in Queensland said that she didn't learn anything from the Voice—so much for having a voice to actually listen to the people.

The thing is that we already have a voice. It's called the ballot box, and every three years we get to line up and vote for who we want to represent us. If you join a political party, you get to vote in the preselections—or at least you do if you are in the Liberal Party. That is what the Labor Party try to do. They tried to divide the people through identity politics by getting into their personal space. Do you know why they do that? Because they don't have a plan for how to deliver essential services. They don't know a thing about delivering the things that matter because this is the party of command and control. The Labor Party aren't interested in serving you. They are interested in controlling you. Meanwhile, hardworking Australians are doing it tough. They have rising rents. They have rising interest rates. They have rising power prices. They have rising cost of living. What's Labor's answer to this? It's to push identity politics down their throat for the first 16 months of their term, and that is an utter disgrace.

Then we have the issue of transparency and accountability. When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was opposition leader, he came out and said that his government was going to be so transparent and accountable. What have we got for that? We've got some dodgy dealings going on with Qantas, and the minister won't release the minutes of the meetings that she had with Qantas. But that's not news! Prime Minister Albanese said he would release the minutes of national cabinet when he became Prime Minister. Did he do that? No, he did not do that. Did he support our motion for a quarterly pricing report into the cost of energy and how that cost of energy is formulated? No, he didn't support that. Did he hold a royal commission into COVID? No, he didn't support that. He supported a few COVID alarmists to do a dodgy inquiry that's going to be released in about 18 months time. He's not going to have anyone that is publicly elected scrutinise what went on. No, no, no! He is going to sweep it under the carpet. This is evidence of a Labor Party that is full of hubris, actual hate, guilt and fear-mongering but refuses to deal with the issues that matter to everyday Australians, which are, of course, the cost of living, energy prices et cetera et cetera.

As we move forward, have we talked at all this week about what Labor want to do? No. We've passed family law legislation which seeks to divide families. Why did Labor do that? Well, that's all they know how to do: to walk into the family home, the bedroom, the classroom, the doctor's waiting room, the corporate boardroom—and didn't we see that with the Voice? Didn't we see the corporates make utter fools of themselves? They spent millions and millions of dollars, wasting shareholders' money, on pushing a 'yes' vote that the people didn't want. They had no authority to spend that money. Did any of those companies actually get board approval for that? I doubt it. But that is so typical of the Labor Party and their mates in big business and big unions and big super funds. It was the same with superannuation. There was never an election to see whether or not people wanted 12 per cent of their wages stolen from them. No, no. This is the party of dictatorial one-style government, where they look after the elites and don't care about the battlers.