Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Evans) and the Minister for Employment Participation (Senator Arbib) to questions without notice asked by opposition senators.

This government continues to duck for cover and refuses to take responsibility for its serious failures with the Home Insulation Program. Earlier this week I asked the Minister for Employment Participation, Senator Arbib, when he first became aware of the safety issues for workers involved in the rushed and failed Home Insulation Program and he refused to answer. Today Senator Abetz asked the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship, Senator Evans, representing the Prime Minister, whether he would be able to ask the Prime Minister to get that information. The Prime Minister tells us that he is responsible and that the buck stops with him. Senator Evans, in relation to Senator Arbib, just glibly suggested, ‘Why don’t you ask him a question?’ So I asked Senator Arbib a second time: ‘When did you, Minister, first become aware of the serious safety issues for workers involved in the failed Home Insulation Program?’ Again he was very disciplined and very focused in giving us a lot of propaganda but he did not answer the core question: when was he, as the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Government Service Delivery, as Mr Stimulus himself, first made aware of the serious safety issues for workers involved in the failed Home Insulation Program? To this day we do not have an answer. I can only hope that Senator Evans will take his commitment to this chamber seriously and raise the matter with the Prime Minister and that the Prime Minister will be true to his word—that he is responsible—and will get the information from Minister Arbib that we continue to be unable to get from him in this chamber.

When he was appointed as the Minister Assisting the Prime Minister on Government Service Delivery he was Mr Stimulus. He was going to be the one who was going to be responsible for all the jobs out there. He was out there bragging about every single job that was created. He was telling us, in speech after speech, what a wonderful program it was. But now that things are going pear shaped, he is running for cover.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That’s right. He’s ducking for cover.

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, he is ducking for cover, as Senator Bernardi has just mentioned. This was a rushed program and it was implemented in the most incompetent manner, and all of that has been well documented in recent weeks. But why is this minister, who told us earlier this week that he attended regular meetings to supervise the rollout of this program and to discuss issues of risk and to discuss other issues in relation to the rollout of this program, not prepared to tell us when he first became aware of the serious worker safety issues in relation to this program? Perhaps he does not know.

The reality is that this minister is too busy running the affairs of the New South Wales Labor Party to be properly focused on his responsibilities as a minister. This minister is trying to stop New South Wales premiers from getting rolled and is having to manage the fallout when they do get rolled. He is doing deals offering Labor Party preselection to the Senate and then taking it away. He is having lunches and dinners in the cafes and Chinese restaurants of Sydney where he is offering preselection or taking it away. I will be very interested in the contribution of Senator Hutchins to this take-note motion, because I would like to hear from Senator Hutchins what he thinks about Senator Arbib’s activities in New South Wales.

Then you hear Senator Arbib has got his proteges being appointed as secretaries-general of the New South Wales Labor Party and then getting them sacked. Of course if he gets them sacked he has to find them a job in the Senate. I wonder who are going to be the people suffering the consequences of that. If you have a minister that is so entrenched and so desperate to stay on top of the machinations of the New South Wales Labor Party, of course he cannot focus on his true job as a minister of the Crown.

This is very serious. There have been some serious failings in the rollout of this program that have been seriously criticised by industry experts right from the word go. The minister has got some serious questions to answer and he is refusing to answer them. The Prime Minister, who to get his job was relying on Senator Arbib to roll the great Labor federal member from Western Australia, Kim Beazley, has probably been accommodating Senator Arbib’s failings—too much so, we would argue. He is prepared to look past them. But this is a time when the Prime Minister should stand up to the New South Wales Labor Right’s powerbroker, Senator Arbib, because he is actually losing his influence. The word on the street is that he is struggling to keep a hold on what is going on over there. I hope, for the sake of Senator Hutchins, that he will not succeed in stopping his preselection. (Time expired)

Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is indeed a welcome endorsement, which I will take back to the internal processes within the Labor Party! Since the accession of Mr Abbott to the Liberal leadership we have seen a sharp turn of that party from what I suppose Malcolm Turnbull believed. He was in many ways one of the honourable heirs of the founder of the Liberal Party, Robert Menzies. Robert Menzies was a true liberal. In fact, in his signature speech in 1942, when he spoke about the forgotten people—whom he was to successfully appeal to in 1949—he marked out the differences between the party he wished to represent and other parties. I will quote him:

Let me first define it by exclusion. I exclude at one end of the scale the rich and powerful: those who control great funds and enterprises, and are as a rule able to protect themselves—though it must be said that in a political sense they have as a rule shown neither comprehension nor competence.

I think the modern conservative party now taken over by Tony Abbott would qualify for that—‘neither comprehension nor competence’. What we are speaking about is part of the stimulus package that this government initiated when the world was struck by the greatest financial crisis we had had since the Great Depression. It was this government that decided to act, rather than let the economic forces operate without some sort of restraint—and let me tell my conservative colleagues over there on your left, Mr Deputy President, about that.

Let me tell you the OECD’s statistics for unemployment last year: Australia, 5.6 per cent; Canada, 8.3 per cent; Finland, 8.3 per cent; France, 9.4 per cent; Ireland, 11.8 per cent; Hungary, 10.1 per cent; United Kingdom, 7.8 per cent; and the United States, 9.3 per cent. In two years America’s unemployment rate rose from 4.6 to 9.3 per cent.

We as a government understood that we had to act. We could not just let market forces operate—and nor did your party, Mr Deputy President, when they came into power in 1949. They knew that there was a need for the state to intervene, to make sure that the economy kicked over. They were not going to let anything like the Great Depression happen again, when political crises led to turmoil and revolution. That is what the real Liberal Party did. They knew what they had to do. They had to act, and that is exactly what this government has done. It has pushed money into the economy and stimulated the economy so that this does not happen to us.

Again, I go back to our unemployment rate of 5.8 per cent. This has expanded all over our country, not just in the cities but in regional and rural Australia. We have the strongest economic growth of any of the 33 world economies. We are the only country in that group that has recorded positive growth. Let me tell you what has occurred in this period for our colleagues in the north. The US economy has contracted 3.9 per cent. The euro area has contracted 4.7 per cent. The United Kingdom has contracted 5.5 per cent. Japan, our second greatest trading power, has contracted 6.4 per cent. This has happened since the global financial crisis. It has not happened in this country, because this government has sought to intervene—whether it is in this program or other programs—to make sure the people in this country are not left destitute, homeless and unemployed.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I take that last speech as a defence of the maladministration and negligence of the whole scheme. We on this side of the House want to be nice to Senator Hutchins but not to his nemesis. All week, Senator Arbib has been slipping and sliding, ducking and weaving, and zigging and zagging his responsibilities, but the spotlight has stayed on the maladministration and negligence of this political hoon. Senator Arbib was appointed by the Prime Minister as the parliamentary secretary overseeing the implementation of the stimulus package.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McGauran, I think the reflection you made on the minister should be withdrawn.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That Senator Arbib is a political hoon?

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yes, I think you should withdraw that.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw it. But he cannot duck his responsibilities. Yesterday, I heard the Prime Minister giving out the standards of ministerial responsibility. However low the Prime Minister wants to set that bar, there is one change he cannot make, and that is to the question of misleading parliament—that is always a sackable offence. There is a lot about Senator Arbib’s performance in the last week that says the misleading of parliament is an issue. Many of the answers he has given in this parliament beggar belief. The whole scheme from top to bottom beggars belief. It beggars belief they even took the scheme on.

Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They were told not to.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They were told not to. It beggars belief that Senator Arbib and Minister Garrett, his senior minister, did not see the Minter Ellison report until two weeks ago. This report set out all the warnings about rushing this scheme—all the work safety issues, the possible bloated pricing and shoddy performances. It predicted it all.

It beggars belief that Senator Arbib came into this chamber just two days ago and said that all the departments, and officials from all the ministries, attended those safety meetings and, when asked the next day whether the Prime Minister’s department was one of those that attended the meetings, he said no. He ducked and weaved but he said no—that they were not part of it. He is protecting the Prime Minister. It beggars belief that the Prime Minister’s department was not at those meetings.

Senator Arbib said that he had been informed of the risks but he never asked any questions about what sorts of risks they were. He did not know about the 93 fires or the thousands of electrocuted ceilings—he just knew there were risks. He never asked what or why. It beggars belief. It has more to do with misleading this Senate than anything else. It beggars belief that Minter Ellison would report that he met weekly with them, and yet he knew nothing of the system’s collapse, the shoddiness of the system. I think the other day he even denied he had met with Minter Ellison on a weekly basis, saying he had met them on a ‘regular’ basis.

It all beggars belief because it is not true. There are a lot of untruths being told this week and Senator Arbib is part of that. There is a cover-up, from the Prime Minister’s office through to Minister Garrett’s and Senator Arbib’s offices. But why should we be surprised that Senator Arbib would mislead the parliament or be part of so many untruths? This is a senator who entered parliament for all the wrong reasons. You could say public administration and public service were very low on his list of reasons for entering parliament. It was all to do with political gain, political intrigue and the favours and rewards he could milk from the system, and his mates.

It is incredible that this political hoon, this shallow, overrated New South Wales politician, would enter this parliament and try and bump people as decent as Senator Forshaw or Senator Hutchins, who are both—

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise on a point of order, Mr Deputy President. Although you have asked Senator McGauran to withdraw in relation to a term he used, he has repeatedly used that term. I ask that you ask him to withdraw it again.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I apologise. I was distracted for a moment and I did not hear. Senator McGauran, if you used the term that I asked you to withdraw before, I ask you to withdraw it again.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Was that ‘political hoon’, referring to Senator Arbib?

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or ‘shallow’?

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Or ‘shallow’ or ‘overrated’?

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As I said, I was distracted. I was talking to the Clerk. Senator O’Brien, perhaps you could specifically—

Kerry O'Brien (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, Senator McGauran is trying to be too smart by half, frankly. He knows that he used the term which I complained of and which he has now repeated. He withdrew it before. You were talking to the Clerk—I understand that—and while you were talking to the Clerk he returned to the phrase and used it again. Then, trying to be smart, I suspect, he used it again to question whether that is the term that is objectionable. He knows it is objectionable. He is playing a game.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, on the point of order: I can confirm that Senator McGauran did run off at the mouth and say that Senator Arbib was a political hoon, and I think it is appropriate that he withdraw it.

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let us be very careful where we go here. Senator McGauran, I asked you to withdraw that term.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw the term ‘political hoon’, but I am glad to see that I can still call the senator overrated and shallow. He is trying to muscle out decent senators in Senator Hutchins and Senator Forshaw, experienced and intelligent senators who have come in for all the right reasons. Sure, they have come out of the New South Wales right and they know their politics as well as anyone, but they have got public administration and public service as No. 1, not political intrigue as No. 1; it is well down the list. (Time expired)

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I—

Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Stand up for Senator Hutchins, please!

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hutchins can stand up for himself. He is very capable of standing up for himself and I am sure he will do exactly that. But it is very disappointing to see that the only way the opposition can attack the government is to make personal attacks on a very good minister in this government.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No. He is a very good minister in this government. He is a good minister in this government because he is doing what the Australian people want our government to do. Let us go back to what Senator Hutchins was talking about. What was Senator Hutchins saying? He was talking about the crisis that we faced in this community at the start of the global financial collapse. This government had to do something. This is not a Liberal government. This is a Labor government. This is a government that was determined to pull us out of the problems that the rest of the world was facing. What was the rest of the world facing? The rest of the world was facing a recession.

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bernardi interjecting—

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Bernardi, I know you do not like to hear this, but the rest of the world was facing a recession. We avoided that. Why did we avoid that? Because this government acted. We had to act quickly and we had to stop unemployment skyrocketing like it has in the United States.

Opposition Senators:

Opposition senators interjecting—

Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my left! Senator Farrell is entitled to be heard in silence.

Don Farrell (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy President. I appreciate that protection, particularly from Senator Bernardi. All the opposition can do is launch personal attacks. The core issue that Senator Hutchins was referring to was unemployment. He was talking about the Australian unemployment figures of over five cent. I would like to drill down into those figures a little. He did not refer to some of the state figures. What are the state figures in South Australia? You will be interested in this, Mr Deputy President. In South Australia the unemployment figures are 4.4 per cent. That is well and truly one per cent lower than the national average.

At a crucial time in our history, when all the other countries in the world were seeing their economies fall into recession and unemployment rising, what was happening in Australia, and particularly in South Australia? In South Australia unemployment has fallen to 4.4 per cent. I think it is worth noting that that is the lowest unemployment rate that the state has ever recorded. Why have we done that? Of course it has been due to the stimulus package of the federal government, but I have to also give some credit to the state government, because they have also played a crucial role. One of the things that the Rann Labor government did in South Australia at this crucial period was to ensure that they were very quick off the mark to implement the federal government’s stimulus package. One of the reasons why unemployment amongst the states in mainland Australia is the lowest in South Australia is that, when the federal government introduced its stimulus package, South Australia was quick off the mark to take advantage of that.

When you compare what has happened right around the world, in those 33 economies that Senator Hutchins referred to, where are we? Our economy has not gone into recession. Young people in particular have been able to find jobs and the economy has stayed out of recession. That, principally, is what we needed to do at a crucial time in our history. The rest of the world was falling into recession. We have avoided it. In South Australia, with a combination of Rann Labor and Rudd Labor—the two Rs—we have kept our country out of recession, unemployment is going down, not up, and we are going to find that those figures continue to go down because we have adopted the correct policies. (Time expired)

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is not surprising that Senator Farrell stood up and tried to defend Senator Arbib, his fellow warlord, faction master, powerbroker—or however they like to describe themselves as they promote themselves through the press. But what I find amazing is the contribution by the warlord, Senator Farrell, and the poor victim of betrayal, Senator Hutchins. Senator Hutchins was actually an employer of note of Senator Arbib’s; the apprentice has eclipsed the master through a dagger assault—whether it was from the front or in the back, we are not sure. We only know that Senator Arbib has risen beyond his capacity. That is one thing we know for sure, because this is a minister who cannot be relied upon to do his job. The job he was given in this place was to oversee the administration and implementation of the batty pink batt program.

What was the result of this program? We have had fires in 95 homes—and it is estimated that there are another 135 homes at risk of fire—thanks to a dodgy insulation program. Senator Farrell and Senator Hutchins have the hide and the nerve to come in here and say that a $3 billion pink batt program was somehow going to save the global economy from recession. What absolute nonsense. They had bats in the belfry if they thought that that was going to save Australia from recession! Poor administration has imposed an enormous cost—tens of millions of dollars worth—on the taxpayer unnecessarily.

And the safety and efficacy of this program was the responsibility of Senator Arbib. The minister whose name they dare not mention on that side of the chamber. Neither Senator Hutchins nor Senator Farrell wanted to invoke the name of the great powerbroker, Senator Arbib. Senator Arbib has been a disaster. His answers to questions are evasive; they are disingenuous. In the Minter Ellison report it said there were weekly meetings with the relevant ministers. Then Minister Arbib said it was ‘regular meetings’, and then today it was ‘infrequent meetings’. He clearly cannot get his time line right as he scrambles to cobble together a defence—a defence that no-one in their right mind will buy.

There was a minister responsible for safety who did not raise the issue of fire safety or other safety issues, such as electrocution. They are the sorts of safety aspects that might endanger people’s lives but this minister did not bother to ask questions about that. He relied on departmental advice which, of course, they all deny seeing. They did not see the Minter Ellison report, even though there were weekly or regular meetings with Minter Ellison! All of these things beggar belief. This is a man who has failed the most basic accountability test of government. Minister Arbib—like their flawed and failed insulation program, which has gone—should go. Mr Garrett should go. They need to stand up and do the mea culpa and say: ‘Yes, we made a terrible mistake. We botched this like we have botched so many other things in the Australian economy and like we have botched so many other things in government.’

Senator Arbib botched so many things in his control of the New South Wales government—the most dysfunctional government, bar the Rudd government, in Australia—and he has botched the handing out of Senate seats like some Illinois governor. He has promised two Senate seats—one to Mr Thistlethwaite, who is his factional cohort and is Labor secretary in New South Wales, and one to some other cat last year. He has two Senate seats up for grabs; the only question is: whose?

Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Marshall interjecting—

Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Will it be Senator Marshall’s seat? Probably not; Senator Arbib’s influence does not extend that far. Would Senator Hutchins possibly be under threat because Senator Hutchins was mounting such a solid defence of his former apprentice, now master? Perhaps it will be Senator Forshaw’s seat. He is not in the chamber, unfortunately. Senator Forshaw is probably packing up his office as we speak.

It is outrageous that a man has so much power and so little accountability. He does not have enough of a conscience to stand up and be honest with the Australian people. He does not have enough accountability and integrity to front his colleagues and say, ‘I’m sorry; you’re out of here, mate.’ He has to do it through the press and to make promises that he cannot keep. Well, the Australian people know that this government—not just this minister—have made too many promises they cannot keep. The promises that they have kept they have failed to implement appropriately. And Australia is worse off as a result. This minister and Minister Garrett need to go.

Question agreed to.