Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

The question really has to be asked: what is going on here? But the one thing that you can be assured of with this government is that you probably won't know what's going on until after it's happened. I say that because, if ever there was a government that can go down in history as being the most opaque government I have ever known or seen, it has got to be this one. Probably what's most galling about this is that they went to the last election telling everybody that they were going to be transparent. You are absolutely the anthesis of transparency, as we saw just a few minutes ago.

At the eleventh hour, they come into this place and they guillotine legislation. There was not one word about these three particular pieces of legislation all week in discussions with the government about facilitating the sensible and calm passage of legislation through this place, as the government is required to do. Instead they say: 'No, we'll do that and then, at the last minute, we'll come in here and crunch a whole heap of legislation.' So the question has to be: Why? Why did they need to guillotine stuff this afternoon? I'll tell you why the government guillotines. The government guillotines because it does not have the capacity or the capability to control the management of this chamber. They can't control the chamber. We've seen guillotine after guillotine after guillotine after guillotine. But what Australians probably should be asking is: Why are they doing it today? Why have we seen the kinds of speeches we've seen in the other place? Why have we seen all of the valedictory speeches? This government probably needs to be honest. What are they up to? Stop treating Australians like mugs, and stop keeping them in the dark.

But one of the things that Australians should be very, very fearful of, if you have a look at what happened today, is the alliance between the Labor Party and the Greens—the next government that this government over there will seek to form if they are fortunate enough at the election. I'm not sure that the electorate is so stupid as to re-elect you, and I'll certainly do everything that I can to make sure the electorate knows what an awful government you are. The worst of it is that, every time they want to get something, they jump back into bed with the Greens. They fight like cat and dog—I've never seen anybody fight like they have all week—but, when the going really gets tough and the rubber hits the road, who jumps into bed with who? It's the Labor Party and the Greens—one bed, two parties—every single time. We're seeing this government move more and more to the left.

The other thing that I think is really worth mentioning is that they are all talk and no action. We've heard contributions in this place on many occasions about all of these amazing things the government has apparently done. All you've done is to issue press releases and headline announcements. How many houses have you built? Absolutely zero. How much have you got electricity prices down? You haven't got electricity prices down; you've actually sent them through the roof. How many times have you come in here and pretended that you've delivered things? Yesterday, how disingenuous was the response in relation to domestic violence, for what you've done! What you've done—as you've done with every other portfolio—is: you've written reports, you've done plans, and you've delivered absolutely nothing.

The one thing that the Prime Minister is very good at doing is insulting Australians, as we saw the other night. What a massive insult to Australian farmers. I come from rural and regional Australia, and our farmers are absolutely amazing. If it wasn't for our communities outside of the capital cities, Mr Chalmers wouldn't be backing a surplus. It's a windfall surplus, on the back of our farmers and on the back of our mining sector. He has done not one thing to contribute towards his surplus; it has actually been our rural and regional communities. But Mr Albanese thought it was okay the other night to be so unbelievably insulting as to say what he did at the AgriFutures rural women's gala night. You couldn't have picked a worse audience, really. What an absolutely tin-eared, inner-city, woke Prime Minister we have, who would then absolutely insult every single woman from the regions, and particularly those women from the regions who were in the Great Hall, who actually come not only from farming communities but from livestock communities. It was just absolutely insulting to a T.

We've seen the CFMEU bill shoved through here this week. They were pretending that they were actually doing something.

The reality is: Australians aren't so stupid. They know that they are worse off under this government. There would not be one person in this country who would be able to stand up and say that they feel better off than they were when this government was elected. I believe that, when the government go to the election, when they go to the ballot box, Australians will tell them exactly what they think. They'll think of all the stuff that the government has done to them, then coming in here and patting itself on the back as if it had done some wonderful job! I think that the electorate will realise that you are all talk and no action. You are sneaky. You are tricky. And you are weak.