Sue Lines (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Just a few months ago, Mr Turnbull, who this afternoon mounted a challenge to the PM, was backing in the PM. On the 7.30 Report in March he described the PM as having 'many strengths' and of being an 'intelligent' and a 'brave man'. Mr Turnbull went on to say:

The Liberal Party is at its strongest when the leading figures in the party ... are seen to be as close as possible.

How could you trust someone who on the one hand says the Prime Minister has many strengths and on the other hand makes the comments about the Prime Minister that Mr Turnbull made today, just a few months later, saying the Prime Minister 'has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs'? How do Australian voters, particularly the voters in Canning, work out what the truth is—the first comments by Mr Turnbull or the second comments? What is the truth? That is what Canning voters want to know.

What does Mr Turnbull believe in? Well, here are some hints. In his first speech he said, 'When things do not succeed, it's about getting up and having another go.' There is nothing here about changing your policies; just grinding on and on with the same old, tired message. On business, Mr Turnbull said:

We need to ensure that no regulation and no compliance burden is imposed on business unless it is absolutely necessary and the policy objective cannot be achieved in any other way.

But of course, when it comes to trade unions and indeed employer associations, it seems that Mr Turnbull was prepared to overlook this strong sentiment and vote for regulatory burden. Just a few weeks ago, on ChAFTA Mr Turnbull said:

All reform necessarily involves winners and losers—but in the ChAFTA context the winners overwhelmingly outnumber the losers.

The losers in ChAFTA are Australian workers. Those are whom Mr Turnbull is talking about here. Such contempt from potentially the next Prime Minister for Australian workers and Australian jobs! We have seen it all before. There is nothing new here.

Today in his 'I'm going to challenge' announcement, Mr Turnbull extolled the virtues of John Howard and his good cabinet. Remember, this was the cabinet of Work Choices, the cabinet whose policies were so harsh that the Prime Minister lost his seat. Mr Turnbull wants to go back to that style of cabinet. 'That's what we need to go back to,' he said—the cabinet of Work Choices. The parallels are there between the communication and mistruths on Howard's Work Choices and the mistruths and outright lies on ChAFTA in Mr Abbott's cabinet.

Quite frankly, I cannot see the difference between the Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, and the challenger, Mr Turnbull, and I doubt very much that the voters in Canning can see that difference either. There has been nothing about policies from Mr Turnbull, the man who backed in all of the budget cuts of the Abbott government. Apparently—according to Mr Turnbull—we just need another leader. There is nothing about new policies.

On the Canning by-election, after spending a million dollars shoring up the Prime Minister's job, the Liberal party has now decided—or at least Malcolm Turnbull has decided—that the million dollars is not money well-spent and that what is needed here is a change of leader. How out of touch are both Mr Abbott and Mr Turnbull to just disregard the spending of a million dollars so far on Canning? I wonder if hordes of staff are standing at shredders right now shredding the campaign material for Canning which featured the Prime Minister. Indeed, will they have time between now and Saturday to design and print new material with a potential new leader? Why would voters of Canning vote for a party that topples its leader, that topples the Prime Minister of Australia?

Apparently, Mr Turnbull believes that it will improve their chances in Canning and that they do need to ditch the leader. He has said:

From a practical point of view, a change of leadership would improve our prospects in Canning …

I wonder what the Liberal candidate is saying out there in the seat of Canning. I know firsthand that when I speak to voters in Canning what they do not like are the policies of the Liberal government. No matter who the leader is, it is the policies out there.

How would Mr Turnbull manage the economy, when under his ministerial leadership the NBN has blown out by $15 billion? This explosion in cost will ultimately deliver a slower NBN. Seriously, do we really need another failed minister as the next Prime Minister?

On the harsh, cruel budget cuts of the past, Mr Turnbull's message was clear. It is all in the selling of the message, he has said in a simple six-point plan that he spelt out at the Brisbane Club a couple of months ago, and he has said similar in his challenge today:

A style of leadership that respects the people's intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it.

There it is once again: no policy change, just a change in how the message is delivered. Mr Turnbull's six-point plan starts like this: government must take action, including highlighting problems clearly and repetitively. It must explain the need for reform. He sets that out very clearly. The Abbott government has done this over and over, and guess what? It is not the explanation of the message that is the problem; it is the message itself.

In step six, the last step, Mr Turnbull says you 'identify the losers'. That is what he said at the Brisbane Club. You identify the losers—those that will lose from change—and, to the extent possible, assist them to adjust. He said in ChAFTA that there are winners and losers. Do you remember that? How out of touch and arrogant of Mr Turnbull to simply assert that all you need to do once you have put forward the other five steps of your six-step plan is to assist them—presumably the public and the voters of Canning—to adjust: adjust to health cuts, adjust to cuts in education, adjust to $100,000 degrees, adjust to cuts in income, adjust to higher costs at the doctor, adjust to a freeze on superannuation contributions, adjust to cuts to the pension, adjust to longer waiting periods for benefits, adjust to a failed climate change policy, adjust to no science minister and savage cuts to the CSIRO, adjust to no housing minister and savage cuts to the capital component of homelessness funding, adjust to cuts in penalty rates, adjust to cuts to working conditions in their Fair Work Amendment Bill currently before the Senate.

At every turn, the attack on working Australians, young people, university students, trade unions, pensioners and families from the Abbott government is fully endorsed by Mr Turnbull, who thinks that all you need to do is have a six-point plan to sell your message. All this is from a failed opposition leader who showed Australians then that he was out of touch and arrogant. All of this is from the challenger to the Prime Minister. There is nothing about a change in policy. Australian voters, particularly those in the seat of Canning, have seen through this and they just want the Liberal Party out of office as soon as possible.