Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond to the address of the Governor-General at the opening of this historic formation of the first term of the Albanese government. I hope it might be the first term of several terms of Labor led government under Mr Albanese. I think it's a fact that few could really have imagined the events of the three years that preceded the change of government—the turmoil, the anguish and the uncertainty that was just part of people's lives. In the time since the election, I've met with many Australians who say to me that they're so glad to wake up without the sense of fear and dread of what new disaster might be landing on them at the hands of their Prime Minister. That was what people were living with under Mr Morrison. In addition to the failure of the government to do its job as a government, instead permanently creating panic and devastation, we had the reality of so many external events that impacted us all. We had floods, devastating bushfires, inflation, pandemics, lockdowns and all the hurt that these elements inflicted on our nation, and they've irrevocably changed us. But out of every crisis there is an opportunity to review the way we do things, and this Albanese government is keen to make the very best of the learnings from those challenges that Australians faced.

The long boom ended and our first recession in three years came, in the face of a global downturn. Despite lower unemployment, workers are now doing it tougher than ever. Change, in the unlikeliest of circumstances, begat change, and last year Australians voted for change of many kinds. We had a change of government for only the third time this century. Record First Nations representation was achieved in this parliament, and I include in that my good friend Dr Gordon Reid, who lives in the seat of Robertson, which I was proud to represent in the other chamber between 2010 and 2013. What a wonderful addition he is to the complement of members in the lower house. I couldn't be prouder of my new seatmate, Senator Jana Stewart, and, although she's just left the chamber, the first hijab-wearing senator, Senator Payman. We've also seen the delivery of a female majority in the Senate, and Mr Sam Lim, our first dolphin trainer, elected to the lower house. What a joy it was to hear his first speech and to look up, in this multicultural and multifaith nation, and see the very well-known saffron coloured robes of Buddhist monks in the chamber—the reality of our multifaith nation on display there.

For Labor, we've always understood that representation matters. Our diverse houses now look much more like the wonderful multicultural, multifaith, pluralist democracy that we are and the nation that we seek to serve. It's also important, I believe, that this parliament will seek to enact the Uluru Statement from the Heart in full. As I make this contribution, nine months into the government's response to the Governor-General's remarks, that discussion about whether we will indicate in our Constitution the simple fact that First Nations people were here is at its core. We have the opportunity to do the right thing.

I'm usually very proud of Australians for doing the right thing. I have taught many Australian schoolchildren. When we get around to talking about First Nations' spirituality, particularly in religion classes, and the history of First Nations people, they are unbelievably shocked that prior to 1967 Australia's First Nations people were counted as flora and fauna. That is a shocking thing for Australians to know, that this is our history.

But Australians rose to the challenge of acknowledging the fact—it's hard to say this sentence—that Aboriginal people were worthy of counting in the census, that they're people and need to be counted. Australians have hit this historical moment that it's no longer contested that Aboriginal people were here. Terra nullius has been nullified. People know the fact, and it's time that we wrote it into our hard story that's contained in that very small but very powerful document that I'm very proud to call our Constitution.

The debate that's happening about the Voice, right now, is a debate that we're past time having. It's already been five years—five years that the statement sat on the last government's desk, waiting for enactment. At least, that was the public voice, the public statement. They were waiting to get the job done. But they didn't do the job. The reality is they just paid lip-service to a very important and generous offer from the First Nations people of this country.

It matters not just in a symbolic way. I can say to you, colleagues, that I have had the privilege of getting out right across the beautiful state of New South Wales. Last year I visited Wilcannia and spoke to people there. That whole community was ravaged by COVID-19, and failure to address that crisis echoed the persistent failure to get that community off its knees.

The average life span for a man in Wilcannia is 38 years of age. It is unbelievably shocking. Of two young men born into the same town in Australia 38 years ago, one of them, a First Nations man, is likely to die at that age—not the other 38-year-old man who is not First Nations. For women, it's not much better. The average life span for women in Wilcannia is 41 years.

It's no coincidence, these appalling statistics in a community that is overwhelmingly Indigenous. It has become, sadly, part of the documented reality of our time, and it cannot be allowed to continue. It's a result of centuries of dispossession and discrimination and an outright campaign, from the state, to rid our First Nations people of their way of life.

Labor understands that when you're in government you need to lead. You need to lift the sights, the vision, the hopes, the capacity, the economy and the community to build hopes and dreams and help to deliver the best outcomes for Australia. That's why we've been rolling out the roadmap of implementation of the First Nations' generous offer to Australians that came through the Uluru Statement from the Heart and is now part of the public discussion, discussed in shorthand terms as 'the Voice'. I know that Minister Linda Burney has been putting her hand very much to the task of delivering a great outcome there. And I want to acknowledge the wise and remarkable leadership of my colleague in this chamber, Senator Pat Dodson, who, I think, just in the last 24 hours, has revealed the heartbrokenness and the tears of a nation that weeps for the loss of opportunities being taken up to redress the imbalance of life outcomes and opportunity between First Nations people and the rest of us who call this great country our home.

I hope and pray that we will find a way to move forward together in a unifying way—no more division. It's time to lift our sights. This process and its momentous consequences will change our nation for the better. It's one part of righting the historic wrongs by empowering Indigenous Australians and giving them a clear voice in our national debate. It will establish a Makarrata, which is a truth-telling commission, and that will bring together the disparate strands of our history and tell it like it really is, or was—the bad and the good; the truth.

I want to acknowledge the incredible integrity and academic leadership shown by a good friend of mine Professor Lyndall Ryan, formally of Newcastle University, for her profound contribution to our national understanding with her recording and publication of the sites of so many massacres that were part of this country. These are hard words for me to speak, and they are tragic things to recall, but we need to put them on the record and know that that is part of our history, alongside all the great stuff. Three key words: voice, treaty, truth. We will deliver all three with the help of the consultation that we're undertaking with our First Nations brothers and sisters and that incredible generosity and desire for truth telling that I think is fundamental to what's best about Australia and Australians.

Very importantly, the Albanese government will also be the parliament, provide the parliament, that passes an anti-religious discrimination bill, the bill that we will enact in accordance with our promises. Unlike the five years and two different governments under the Liberal National Party, who failed to deliver anything for the protection of freedom of Australians from religious discrimination, Labor will be the party that unites in support of people of all faiths to be free in our multicultural pluralistic democracy to practice their faith, alongside people who have no faith and their freedoms. It will be a bill that celebrates and protects our religious diversity. And it will not be the kind of bill that has exhausted advocates for the right to practise their religion under the former government, which was designed like so much of the legislation of the previous government as a tool to pit one Australian against another. Either/or, choose a team, goodies and baddies, lifters and leaners—we heard all that language of division. Well, that ends with the arrival of an Albanese government, and I'm very proud to be a senator in this Labor government that will lead in a way that unites our nation.

I've spoken of the healing soul of our nation, but we have a great task ahead of us, which is the healing of the world itself. Australians everywhere I go talk to me of the raging bushfires, floods, droughts, minor earthquakes and record temperatures that are happening in Australia and across the world. The evidence is there for all of us to see. Our planet is warming, and further warming will be catastrophic for all life on this planet. I certainly don't want that for my children and my grandchildren, and I don't think I know an Australian who wants that for anyone.

Labor will end the climate wars. Other people may want to continue them, but we've got to lift up and move on. We will get real action on climate change, and we will do it in a responsible way that manages a transition that doesn't deprive people of jobs and that isn't so purist that it can't deal with the reality of the need for a transition through gas. We will absolutely ensure that Australia benefits from a transition to clean renewable energy, and we have in our grasp the opportunity to become a major green superpower, particularly in the Asia-Pacific region. Our commitment will pass through this parliament—a commitment to reduce net emissions by 43 per cent on 2005 levels—and we've got on with the job of doing that.

There are opportunities for us to reach out into the regions around us. The former government were too short-sighted, too divided and unable to develop a cogent, forward-thinking climate change plan. And they continue to oppose ours, despite having no agenda of their own. But, despite that, an Albanese led Labor government will do what Australians need. (Time expired)

Wendy Askew (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'm speaking today to acknowledge the address by Governor-General David Hurley AC DSC to the 47th Parliament. His Excellency addressed this chamber in July 2022 to mark the beginning of a new parliament and to outline the Albanese Labor government's plans. It's been eight months since the Albanese government took power, but what do we have to show for that eight months? The cost of living is biting more than ever, and inflation is the highest it has been in 33 years. It's a struggle to do the weekly shop, to pay for school uniforms and fees as the school year begins and to put petrol in our cars. Reducing the cost of living for Australians is well and truly overdue. Each day households and small businesses are forced to suffer further. That is a day too long.

Another anticipated interest rate on Tuesday—tomorrow—is likely to be the 10th rate rise in 12 months, with still more to come, so we're told. When questioned about how a typical Australian home mortgage has risen by $1,400 a month, the Prime Minister didn't address the issue at hand, instead once again looking to lay blame elsewhere. The 800,000 people who are facing mortgage cost hikes when their fixed rates switch to a higher variable rate this year want action to ensure that they can keep their homes. But Anthony Albanese was more interested in talking about prescription drugs, TAFE, child care and his May budget. Hundreds of thousands of Australians are wondering whether they will have a roof over their heads in May, but the cost-of-living predicament that our nation faces right now is the last thing on Labor's mind.

The Senate Select Committee on Cost of Living, which was established in September and is being chaired by Liberal Senator Jane Hume, has already heard that higher grocery prices and rising mortgages are leaving families struggling to put food on the table. Uniting Vic.Tas chief executive officer Bronwyn Pike wrote about how the organisation's consumers were experiencing increasing levels of poverty, homelessness, food insecurity and violence due to the devastating impact of the rising cost of living. Uniting Vic.Tas's research report Can't afford to live showed that 92 per cent of respondents were cutting back on food and groceries because of rising costs. Half of respondents cut back on heating during winter last year. And parents, carers and people living with disability have been skipping meals, all the while preparing food for others. As Senator Hume has said, Labor don't have an economic plan. They've abandoned finding solutions to this crisis and instead are breaking promises to families and breaking promises to businesses.

Cost of living is the top issue facing Australians right now. The government should be developing practical solutions that will make a difference to the lives of ordinary Australians who are struggling. The frequently promised $275 cut to energy bills is sorely needed but hasn't eventuated. Instead, parliament was recalled in a rush and at a busy time, right before Christmas, to address urgent energy legislation. Instead of spending time in our electorates participating in end-of-year school events and boosting and supporting small businesses in the lead-up to Christmas, hundreds of politicians and staff had to return to Canberra for a hastily reconvened sitting to discuss energy measures. And to what end? That legislation we all rushed back to Canberra for in December has had no impact to date.

Right now, we need a federal government that we can trust to look after all of us when times are tough, but that is not what we have. We have a government that promised reforms that would actually make a difference to health care and Medicare, but that commitment has failed as well. With bulk-billing rates so low, Australians are now out of pocket, on average, by $60 when they visit their GP—and that's if they can get into see one! This Labor government was elected on a platform of strengthening Medicare, but all we've seen is the Medicare system weakened: mental health rebates have been slashed in half, 70 telehealth services have been cut out of Medicare coverage, ambulance ramping at our hospitals is getting worse and elective surgery is being deferred at concerning levels. And what about those urgent care clinics we were all promised? Where are they?

It's time for tangible action to improve our ailing healthcare system, Labor. You promised to deliver 50 urgent care clinics across the country, including three in my home state of Tasmania, within the first 12 months of government. Given we are now more than two-thirds through that first 12 months, shouldn't we have seen more progress by now? Instead of being well on the way to establishing these clinics, all that has happened is that expressions of interest for about three have been requested.

I and my coalition colleagues intend to hold the Albanese government to account when it comes to delivering on the commitments it made during and since the election campaign. When he launched Labor's election campaign, Mr Albanese promised to tackle the spiralling cost of living that is making life tough for too many Australians. There were commitments to raise real wages; to make health care, child care and housing more affordable while growing the economy; to strengthen Medicare; to create more jobs and invest in fee-free TAFE and universities places as well as invest in manufacturing and renewable energy. This all sounded great at the time, Prime Minister, but, as we've already seen, this government has already reneged on many of its promises.

In the two years before the 2022 election, power prices fell by eight per cent for households and up to 12 per cent for businesses. The ACCC said prices were the lowest they had been for eight years. Mr Albanese flagged energy price cuts of up to $275 a year for families and businesses by 2025, but in fact our energy bills are rising, and look set to continue escalating.

Even Labor's much hyped submission to the Fair Work Commission to lift the minimum wage was swallowed up by inflation. In this submission, the Albanese government explained it did not want to see Australian workers go backwards, in particular those workers on low rates of pay who are experiencing the worst impacts of inflation and have the least capacity to draw on savings. However, inflation has continued to rise over the past eight months with no relief in sight and real wages have actually decreased.

The economic growth Australia was experiencing under the coalition has come to an end, and that is hurting hardworking Australians. To add salt to the wound, the government stifled growth in some of our key industries by freezing hard-earned grants. Modern Manufacturing Initiative grants that were awarded before the election were held up. Important industries that we rely on every day—such as defence, space, medical, food security and heavy manufacturing—were all impacted by that decision.

The coalition know the value of primary industries in Australia. Our government invested in trade and exports, biosecurity stewardship, supply chains, water and infrastructure, innovation and research, and human capital to support the important agriculture, fisheries and forestry industries. But Minister Watt delayed taking action to ensure Australia's $81 billion agricultural industry was protected and not unduly impacted by foot-and-mouth disease. It really has not been a good start for this government. Mr Albanese said he wanted his government to be one that was more inclusive and delivered more solutions. He campaigned on the idea of a future where no-one is held back, and no-one is left behind. But, as we can already see, those words are tarnished.

The coalition's focus is to support good policy that is in the best interests of Australia, and we will hold the government to account when it breaches its commitments. We will oppose actions that take our economy backwards and force inflation rates even higher. The coalition will ensure we're backing families and small businesses doing it tough under Labor's cost-of-living crisis.

We had a strong record in government of lower prices, lower interest rates, lower unemployment, lower taxes and stronger borders, and we're proud of this. The Albanese government is nearly one year into its three-year term and has very little to show for it apart from broken promises, an increased cost of living, increased interest rates and increased inflation.

Tony Sheldon (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

In response to the Governor-General's address on the commencement of the 47th Parliament, but also in response to some very poignant words that Senator O'Neill said just earlier regarding the Uluru Statement from the Heart and in response to the genuineness of Senator Pat Dodson—I certainly wholeheartedly support her comments and the genuineness of Senator Pat Dodson.

The Governor-General spoke at length about how the Albanese Labor government will tackle the cost-of-living and wages crises left to us by the previous government. We've moved quickly, with cheaper child care legislated for 1.2 million families. We have made medicines cheaper. We have secured a meaningful increase in the minimum wage and introduced workplace reforms that are the first steps to ending the lost decade on wages.

Those workplace reforms are critical. Already, major employers like Coles and ANZ have come back to the bargaining table as a direct outcome of the laws passed late last year. The hysteria from the opposition and some in the employer lobby about those reforms was, frankly, embarrassing. They said the country would grind to a halt as soon as those laws were passed. And yet here we are, and the sky hasn't fallen in. But that scare campaign was part of a broader issue that this government must address. That issue is the way that some employers, supported by the Liberals and Nationals, suppress wages by suppressing workers' voices and unions.

In many parts of the world, government, business and unions work together productively to achieve better outcomes for workers. In Germany and most of northern and western Europe, business collaborates with organised labour rather than attempting to destroy it. And their economies are both fairer and more productive.

I know there are many businesses here in Australia who desperately want this more-collaborative approach, but they struggle to compete with the businesses that undercut them by suppressing wages, workers' voices and unions. This is a serious workplace issue, it is a serious issue for the Australian economy and it is a serious human rights issue.

The most fundamental tenet of human rights law—the UN Universal Declaration of Human Rights—states explicitly in article 23:

Everyone has the right to form and to join trade unions for the protection of their interests.

That right should be unimpeachable. Instead, we see from the Leader of the Opposition a flagrant disregard for human rights. I'll refer to an article in the Sydney Morning Herald, published on 1 April 2006, entitled 'Sign on the dotted line'. It tells the story of how the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, when he was Assistant Treasurer, treated his employees at the Australian Valuation Office. The article says that the opposition leader refused to negotiate a union agreement with staff 'even though 91 of the 105 in question had voted for one'. Instead they were offered a non-union workplace agreement, or AWA, that would see some lose $17,000. So the opposition leader's employees at the Australian Valuation Office, when he was the minister, voted by a whopping 86 per cent majority for a union agreement. And he responded by depriving them of what is a fundamental human right, and in the process he robbed them of $17,000 each.

This is the same opposition leader who claimed some weeks ago that he represents the Australian working class—a bloke who stopped his own workers having a union agreement even after they voted to do so. What message does that send to Australian businesses? It tells them that they, too, can rob their workers of their voice, in order to make an extra buck.

Let's take BHP, the biggest and richest company in Australia. Surely a company that made a $32 billion profit last year doesn't need to suppress wages and its workers' voices. A number of weeks ago, the Federal Court found that BHP unlawfully sacked Daryl, a labour hire worker at a BHP coal mine near Moranbah. Justice Collier found that BHP sacked Daryl because 'he insisted on exercising workplace rights at the mine'. What was the workplace right that BHP fired him for exercising? He was fired for speaking up about unsafe work practices. He was fired because he said it was unsafe for workers to continue working during a lightning storm and because he refused to take an out-of-service tag off a truck with an oil leak. But that's not all. Justice Collier also found that BHP senior management was particularly interested in Daryl for another reason. To paraphrase Justice Collier, the other reason is that Daryl's brother is a union health and safety representative at another BHP mine.

Unfortunately, Daryl is not the only person that has been illegally sacked by a large Australian employer due to their connection to a union. Take Theo, for instance. Theo worked as a Qantas cabin cleaner for almost seven years before the COVID-19 pandemic began. He was also a trained and experienced union health and safety representative. I will quote Theo directly on what happened next. He said: 'At the start of the pandemic, we were directed to clean planes with just water, no sanitiser for the trays or anything. PPE was not mandated, despite managers wearing hazmat suits. We were not even provided with masks or disinfectant. I made numerous approaches to management to ask for further PPE or for the risk assessment they had done. After everything was declined, I directed a group of workers to cease unsafe work, which is one of the health and safety representative's powers. That day, I was stood down, and it was my last day at Qantas.'

Qantas is being prosecuted by WorkSafe. Three years later and this case is still ongoing. Of course, Theo is not alone in being discriminated against for exercising a workplace right at Qantas. Qantas is currently in the High Court over their illegal sacking of close to 2,000 workers. The Federal Court has found that, on two separate occasions, they were sacked because Qantas did not want them to bargain together with the Transport Workers Union for their next employment contract. Worse still, even though the Federal Court ruled that Qantas was guilty twice, they didn't have to give the workers their jobs back because Qantas said that they would just sack them again anyway. That is the hallmark of a broken system. Sure, they might pay a penalty, but Alan Joyce has already got what he wanted. He sent a message to every single Qantas worker that, if you dare to work together to make your workplace safer or fairer, you'll be dealt with. It is an absolutely totalitarian way to approach a workplace.

The Leader of Opposition, Peter Dutton, and Alan Joyce are not the only people refusing to let their workers choose to bargain through their union. There's Woodside, which makes tens of billions of dollars a year flogging our national resources while paying as little tax as possible. Back in June of last year, eight months ago, Woodside's offshore gas workers filed a majority support determination at the Fair Work Commission. That means a majority of them have decided that they want to be represented by their unions, the AWU and the MUA, and negotiate a new agreement with Woodside. That is their legal right. It happens in workplaces around Australia every day. In the eight months since then, Woodside has launched nine legal challenges, each one more ridiculous than the last, and every single one has failed. As we know, the 10th legal challenge has also recently failed. Woodside has dragged those workers through the courts for almost a year. Woodside has no case to argue.

In one case, Woodside claimed, without any evidence, that some of the signatures on the petition were fake. Then, after this fraudulent argument had delayed bargaining by eight months, Woodside argued the petition was now outdated. But get this: they also refused to hold a new ballot. The entire Woodside case was fraudulent. It was only designed to waste the time and resources of its workforce, the AWU and MUA. As the Offshore Alliance's coordinator, Zach Duncalfe, said:

Woodside is filing application after application trying to discourage its workers and their union from seeking to enforce their right to bargain.

…   …   …

every one of the applications was "without merit" …

…   …   …

It's underhanded and entirely cynical.

Just the other morning, Woodside announced that it had launched a 10th legal challenge, which it has now failed on.

This behaviour from the opposition leader and from BHP, Qantas and Woodside needs to be called out for what it is. It's about suppressing wages and workplace voice. It's about silencing and intimidating workers. These are flagrant beaches of the intent of articles 20 and 23 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, and when they get caught, they drag the workers and their unions through the courts for years at a time. If they have to pay a small fine at the end, they'll make it and more back through suppressed wages. They'll happily pay a fine or legal cost, provided it sends a message to their workforce. That message is that, if you try and organise with your mates to have a strong voice in the workplace, we will attack you. It is corporate thuggery at its worst and its absolute ugliest.

Of course, the only reason so many big businesses feel emboldened to flagrantly suppress wages, unions and a workers' voice is that they have explicit support from the Liberal and National parties. Whether it's the Leader of the Opposition, Mr Dutton, refusing to negotiate with his workers, even after 86 per cent of them voted to do so; former Prime Minister Morrison refusing to say every worker should be paid the minimum wage, which happened only last year; former workplace relations minister Christian Porter saying, 'It's too hard to regulate minimum conditions for gig workers;' or the former Assistant Minister for Industrial Relations, Senator Stoker, saying to the nearly 2,000 illegally sacked Qantas workers that it was their own fault, we have a fundamental crisis in this country. The Leader of the Opposition and the renegade employers that dominate some of the biggest boardrooms in this country think they can silence their workers democratic voice to save a buck.

Conservatives and employers have fostered a culture of fear amongst Australian workers when it comes to unions. They have created an inherent fear among workers that if they try to organise they will be persecuted and punished by their employer. The reality is that millions of Australians want to join a union. They just haven't had access to the opportunity to do so. In 2010, the Australian workplace representative survey found that 34 per cent of non-union employees would join a union if one formed at their workplace. That is over 3½ million Australians who have been deprived of their right to join a union and whose families have been left financially worse off as a result, and there's the rub.

We don't have a decline in new membership in Australia. We have a decline in access to the opportunity to join a union. The people who ultimately pay for that are all Australians. Union members earn an average of 32 per cent more than nonmembers. That's a difference of $350 per week. In some industries, like construction, the gap is 44 per cent. That explains why those opposite have such feral, thuggish attitudes towards the CFMMEU. Employers know this, and that is why they and their stooges in the coalition fight tooth and nail to crush unions. That is why they have imported US-style union-busting 101 tactics.

Every Australian worker deserves to have access to the superior pay and conditions that come with union membership. If we are going to reverse the economy-wide decline in wages, job security and conditions, we need to reverse the decades of attacks on unions. We need to ensure that those millions of Australian workers who would join a union if they could have the ability to do so. That is the only way that we're going to ensure the middle-class jobs once again have middle class pay and conditions.

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I appreciate the opportunity given to me a few minutes ago to make reflections on the Governor-General's address. I want to make a few reflections on His Excellency's address to the parliament. First of all, in the traditional fashion, the speech set out the government's agenda for this term. It's a newly elected Labor government. In the election campaign, we had as our mantra that we're going to be a government that did what we said we were going to do. So that does mean, in the Governor-General's address, some of the commitments that he unfolded—making child care cheaper, putting downward pressure on energy prices, bringing down the cost of prescription medicine, introducing fee-free TAFE, introducing the National Reconstruction Fund legislation and this parliament resolving new targets around emissions, fundamentally settling, in my view, a final position around climate change—have already been implemented. These initiatives, which the Governor-General set out, have already been implemented, apart from the National Reconstruction Fund, and I'll come to that in a moment.

This government is setting about very carefully doing what it is that we said that we would do. That is, I have to say, because, as a government, we did opposition a bit differently over the course of the last term. I think previously Mr Abbott had set the template for what political opposition looked like in Australia, just wrecking and saying no and being destructive. The Labor Party, led by Albanese throughout the course—it felt pretty long—of our three years in opposition, actually took a thoughtful approach to learning the lessons of why it was that we weren't successful at the 2019 election, internalising those lessons, doing the careful policy development work and not being noisy and shouty when it came to how we dealt with the agenda of what passed for the Morrison government. We actually did opposition in a way that Australians expected us to. That bore real fruit in the national interest during the course of the COVID pandemic, because it would have been open to the opposition to take a hyper partisan approach during the COVID period. It would have been open to us to oppose everything that the government proposed, but, in fact, what the opposition—now the government—did was carefully deal with all of those issues in the national interest and meet the government halfway on some of the questions that mattered. We did opposition differently. It meant that when we came to making our commitments in the lead up to the last election, voters took those commitments seriously.

What I'd observe, in giving out a little bit of free advice to those opposite, is that none of that self-reflection has occurred in the Liberal and National parties. There has been none of that reflection about what it was that was so corrosively bad about the government that they were all a part of. This was a terrible government, the Morrison government. This was a government that sat on the shoulders of two pretty ordinary governments before it. But it was, in itself, the worst government since Federation in Australia. It was a government that would have made Billy McMahon feel sick. It was such a poor government because it lacked ambition for the country; they only had ambition for themselves.

Paul Scarr (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

What about Gough?

Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know that Senator Scarr's made a partisan comment about the Whitlam government, but the Whitlam government had ambition for the country. I understand we may differ about what that ambition meant and where it led, but at least it had ambition for the country and—what are we?—45 years later the changes that the Whitlam government made are still remembered. Nobody in 45 years will remember the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, I can assure you of that.

It's impossible to look at the Governor-General's speech and the achievements and the commitments that we have made as a new government without understanding what historically framed it—the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government was characterised by complacency. It was a government that was characterised by policy laziness; a government that was characterised by a deep sense of entitlement. The objective of that government was simply to hold government itself and for the preferment and the privilege of those closest to them. It was a government that allowed senior members of the government and backbenchers to retreat into a nasty, far-right, US-Trump-style extremism. You can see some of those people are still here, amongst those opposite. The kind of politics espoused by Senator Rennick, Senator Antic and others is a retreat into nativist, Trump-style, derivative—I have to say pretty boring—extremist politics, in an attempt to scoop up potential branch members. Senator Scarr knows what I'm talking about because they were recruiting them in Queensland today. The slogan was 'Keep the cookers out' a few weeks ago. The problem is, in the Queensland Liberal National Party, it's too late. The stable door is open. The horse has bolted. The cookers are in charge of significant parts of the Queensland Liberal National Party.

That's the legacy of that government. Rather than do what Howard did, what former senator Boswell did or what conservatives of courage, commitment and principle did, which was to say, 'We're going to close the door to extremism,' the Morrison government fanned the flames of extremism. That's what they did in order to bolster a few right-wing voters here and a few branch members there. They made a craven attempt to promote far-right extremism, as the former prime minister did—it has been very well documented—in his preferring the candidacy of Ms Deves in Warringah. The problem with doing that is, if you do it when you're in government and you don't reflect on it properly and learn the lessons, it shapes what you're like in opposition, not just this term but next term, the term after that and the term after that, until you actually internalise and learn the lessons and make the hard choices. I'm happy to dish out this advice because, terrified as I am that they might actually take the advice, I know that they're not capable of following through.

What it meant for ordinary Australians is that we had a decade of low wage growth. We had a decade of low capital investment. We had a decade where we diminished our position in the world in a way that undercut and undermined our national interest. None of those things mattered to the people opposite because they weren't faintly concerned with the national interest. We had a decade where the fiscal position of the Commonwealth continued to deteriorate until after the COVID crisis. We were a trillion dollars in debt with nothing to show for it, with a structural deficit as far as the eye can see and with terminating measures in the budget that meant that commitments that the government made to the Australian people were only funded for one year, two years or three years, further undermining the position of the budget. We had nothing to show for it in terms of infrastructure, in terms of social progress, in terms of productivity measures and in terms of the things that would make life better for ordinary Australian families. We saw Medicare undermined, the health system in disrepair and energy policy failure.

The government has had to set about working its way through dealing with these challenges. In terms of our strategic position, the damage that this government did to our position amongst Pacific islands leaders is utterly shameful. It was characterised, by Mr Dutton and Mr Abbott, by making jokes at the expense of Pacific island people, about climate change, when they were caught out by the famous boom mike. The problem with that moment was not that it was a mistake, a sort of joke, a sort of an aside that didn't really characterise what they thought. The problem was it characterised what they thought, and Pacific island leaders and Pacific island people saw that.

So we're engaged in this massive effort in the region, the Pacific and the Indo-Pacific, in terms of our strategic position, in terms of our global position, of catch-up and patch-up, an enormous effort, in governance terms. All I can say, really, is that Australians are entitled to expect much more from their government, not a government that rorts public funds in its own partisan interest.

Their recent criticisms of some of the funded commitments that the government made in opposition, that were specific commitments, they thought were very clever, because they said isn't the government doing what the last government did—utterly betraying their lack of understanding of the government's principles themselves. There is a deep difference. You need to understand it. Wander down to the Auditor-General's office and I'm sure he will explain to you. There's a deep difference between what it is that a political party commits to, in its election program, and what are decisions of government.

The problem for Mr Dutton and all of his friends is that this was a government that utterly perverted the processes of government in its own partisan interest. The list goes on and on, but nothing more symbolises the incapacity of the Liberal and National parties to understand the position that they put the country in than the choice they made after the election, the choice to elect Mr Dutton as the leader. Nobody—unless, I suppose, they'd actually gone and elected Mr Tudge as the opposition leader—symbolises more the failures and the problems, and the lack of moral capacity and the lack of a sense of the national interest, amongst the current cohort of Liberal and National Party MPs than does Mr Dutton. And that is the problem.

People on the other side may well want to defend the previous government, but nothing symbolises more what Mr Tudge said in 2016 than when he—I was quite struck by listening to this in question time. I'd forgotten about it. In 2016, when he was talking about their patently illegal robodebt scheme, he said:

We'll find you, we'll track you down and you will have to repay those debts and you may end up in prison.

They were administering an illegal scheme to some of the most vulnerable people in Australia, who didn't owe the government a dollar. He created the impression in their minds that he would hunt them down and that they may well end up in prison. You can't imagine a crueller, more cavalier approach to the most vulnerable Australians.

There are choices in front of people. The opposition can choose this week and over the next few weeks to reject the government's National Reconstruction Fund, the mandate forum, the chance in this country to rebuild our manufacturing sector. But this opposition are currently saying no. Again, it's about the national security interest, rebuilding our manufacturing capability for democratic cohesion, for all sorts of reasons—for economic reasons and for social ones. We've got a chance to do this and these guys over here say, no, they will not be able to go back into regional electorates and defend that position.

While the track record of governments isn't very strong in by-elections, over our history, the people of Aston have a choice too. It's a vote for or against Mr Dutton that we'll see in Aston. (Time expired)

Question agreed to.