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

I rise to support this motion, because the Australian people have lost all confidence in the Australian Prime Minister. And can I say: what a shocking display of insensitivity we saw on the weekend, when the Prime Minister was flying around between the capital cities, going to pop concerts, when Australians are doing it tough—when Australians are struggling under the cost of living. Many Australians right now are homeless because of this reckless immigration rate, which has been over 500,000 people. And how does Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, respond? He responds by flying around on a taxpayer funded jet, going to see Taylor Swift in Sydney and then getting on the jet and going to a concert hosted by a billionaire. These are not the hallmarks of a man who is concerned about the suffering that is being endured by the Australian people. It's about time he actually started to come up with some solutions as to how he is going to deal with the cost of living.

I can give him a couple of ideas. First of all, he can lower the immigration rate to a level that is sustainable. Right now—and I'm not against immigration—we really couldn't afford to have anyone coming in. I accept we'll have some people coming in. But we have got people who are homeless—and these people aren't necessarily out of work; they just literally cannot find a house to live in. We have got tent cities springing up all over Australia. And this sort of rubbish has to stop.

I want to call out Senator O'Neill for having the audacity to call this motion a 'whingefest'. This is not a whingefest. How dare the Labor Party say that of us, senators, who are calling out the hypocrisy of the Labor government! They have no solutions. They've basically rebranded the tax cuts, that were originally brought down by the Liberal Party, and now are trying to claim credit for them themselves. And they haven't gone far enough, I might add. As I pointed out yesterday, they are giving back, on average, about $800 a year, and the cost of living, on average, has gone up by about $8,000 per year. It's hardly a satisfactory solution.

We don't want to hear from Anthony Albanese, the Prime Minister, accusations of a whingefest; that is not fair. The answer we now get every time we raise an issue is: 'Don't be political. Don't play politics with it.' I'm sorry, but this is from the party, the Labor Party, that played politics with a rape allegation; they weaponised a rape allegation to get at the former prime minister. What a disgrace! They weaponised the bushfires in 2019 to get at the former prime minister. They weaponised the pandemic and caused all these unnecessary lockdowns—and, as ruled today, these COVID vaccine mandates were unlawful—all for political purposes. The Labor Party has no right to come in here and call out what the Liberal Party and the coalition are trying to do in trying to hold this government to account.

Another area where the people have lost faith in the Labor Party and the current government is the lack of transparency. This was one of the many lies the current Prime Minister told. He said he would be completely transparent when he got into office, yet he would not release the minutes of the first National Cabinet meeting. He said he would release the minutes of the National Cabinet meeting, and he did not do that. The Labor Party voted against Senator Duniam's very good idea that we have quarterly reporting of energy pricing, so that we can start to benchmark the cost of energy because what gets measured gets improved. I cannot get from the CSIRO an actual way that net zero is calculated. I cannot get from the TGA the primers used in the PCR test to indicate whether or not the PCR test was actually testing for COVID. There are a range of issues on which the Labor Party will not disclose the inner workings of the government. That just goes to show that they're really on the side of big corporations and big unions—and, let's not forget, they wouldn't disclose the fees paid by superannuation funds to unions. This government needs to pick itself up.