Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Competition, Charities and Treasury) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked by coalition senators today.

Today we saw the early, fresh signs of hubris on the part of the government, and we saw it in two forms. We saw the dismissive nature in which Senator Watt pushed aside legitimate questions from Senator McKenzie on questions that are still unanswered on the government's decision to deny Qatar Airways increased access to Australia, the benefits of which would have come to Australian aviation consumers, to freight users and to many, many others.

Then, in the last question, we saw Senator Farrell, the Minister for Trade, brush aside fresh revelations with regard to the government's decision to appoint its factionally preferred candidate for a very senior diplomatic and trade post in San Francisco—their preferred factional candidate being former Senator Chris Ketter—over a professional diplomat, someone schooled and skilled in trade matters, who was in fact the preferred candidate through a merit process. Wow!

After what we saw over the weekend, when Australians overwhelmingly said that the government's preferred model with regard to constitutional recognition was wrong—and not just a little bit wrong; it was very, very wrong—the government started the week trying to say to Australians, 'We have learnt our lesson and we are going to focus on some other issues, like the cost of living.' But, by Thursday afternoon, they are wearing the cloak of hubris—not shyly, not hiding it in the cupboard; they are wearing it for the whole Australian Senate to see.

Today we saw Senator Watt's decision to brush away legitimate concerns about his ability to bring to the Senate estimates process next week answers to questions that officials refused to bring during the Qatar Senate inquiry process, and we saw Senator Farrell try to brush aside legitimate queries about proper due process with regard to the appointment of a senior trade position, representing Australia's interests overseas. Mark this date: the beginning of Labor's decision to wash away the concerns of electors with regard to cost-of-living issues and the deterioration of the economy. Instead, they are wearing the cloak of hubris.

Over the last few weeks, there have been some very important economic revelations that should be the focus of the government's attention now. Australians are already living with escalated cost-of-living challenges—interest rate rises and inflation pressures. While the country was thinking about its position on Labor's preferred model for constitutional recognition of First Australians, the OECD was saying that Australia is about to experience a second consecutive downgrade with regard to economic growth. In addition, the OECD is saying that inflationary pressures are likely to be persistent in the Australian economy.

The Reserve Bank of Australia, in detailing its reasons for not increasing the cash rate on this occasion, just recently, has given Australians are very serious warning, and that is that, because the government has not tackled inflation in our country, the Labor Party's Christmas gift to Australian families is likely to be another interest rate rise in November. Their Christmas gift to Australian families is likely to be another interest rate rise in November. The RBA has said 'members noted that inflation remained well above target and was expected to do so for some time. Services price inflation remained sticky, and fuel prices were adding to headline inflation. At the same time, members observed that the labour market had reached a turning point and output growth had slowed'. The country is getting into perilous economic times and today we saw Labor's hubris.

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

I also rise to take note of the questions raised by the opposition. There is a great deal of interest in this. My colleague next to me said we have just received a lecture from the opposition about what has been discussed during Senate question time today. Not at any point was there a question raised about the cost of living. What was particularly galling was the question asked about the Qatar circus. I say 'circus' because of the way it has been handled with the so-called investigation—the 'circus'—taking place in today's question time, in yesterday's question time and recently in Senate committee hearings. It has been an absolute circus.

But before I get into the 'circus', let's talk about the track record of those opposite. There were 12 ACCC reports handed down under the previous government that found airlines were delivering declining service standards and higher prices. But did those opposite act? No, of course they didn't act. The big difference on this side is we have acted. We established an important inquiry into the green paper and the white paper. As everyone in the Senate would know, they were significant reports that looked at the implications, the consequences of what was happening in the aviation industry. Those opposite don't ask about that because the last time there was an inquiry into the aviation industry to deal with consumer rights, to deal with aviation efficiency, to drive better standards in aviation and to take opportunities that arise was in 2012. For 10 years, those opposite never carried out an inquiry into aviation regardless of having 12 ACCC inquiries saying it is a dud, it is not working and it needs to change.

On the good news front, just this afternoon Qatar Airways and Singapore Airlines announced a number of flights to increase capacity to Adelaide—a very good outcome. Premier Malinauskas said, 'This means a lot more seats are travelling to and from our state to represent the fact that we've got all this extra activity, we're investing in major events.' He said, 'All this additional activity is providing South Australia jobs at a time when our economy is already running pretty hot.' Well, do you know what? The reality is that aviation is expanding in a number of areas. I haven't always been a great fan of Rex but I need to give Rex a bit of a leg-up too. They will start their inaugural Brisbane flights on 30 October.

On the point of the 'circus', I was actually at the Senate inquiry into the bilateral air service agreements. In that inquiry the government didn't get told who the witnesses were literally until they turned up because the chair of the committee, the person asking questions today and yesterday, wouldn't tell us, no matter how many times we requested it from the secretariat. The secretariat were acting appropriately; they were not doing anything improper. They were directed, as the chair confirmed, to not give us the information. That was the inquiry. They wanted a star chamber, a circus, where you never knew what act would come out next.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's transparency for you.

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

That's transparency. That is actually trying to find answers. Then we saw the sorts of conventions that they dumped doing that. It became quite clear in the dissenting report that the only bit of information that came out about any conflicts of interest about Qantas was the previous minister for transport, Michael McCormack. That came out during the inquiry. That became clear.

When you start coming up here and asking questions about Qatar and aviation, when you start doing a circus at question time both today and yesterday, when you try to use the veil that people aren't serious about dealing with matters before this government and this country and when you start raising the issues of cost of living, turn around and actually raise them in question time, because—guess what?—I know why you've stopped raising them, because we have the answers for the ones you raised in the weeks that have passed.

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

It's good to rise and talk about what a debacle this Labor government is. Last weekend, we had a referendum that divided the country.

Government Senators:

Government senators interjecting—

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

I'm sorry, I can't think because of the yodelling over there. It's distracting me.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order on my right! Senator Rennick.

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

It's the yodelling. I'm not used that sort of yodelling!

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The comments weren't directed towards you, Senator Bilyk. They weren't spoken personally to you. Let's please get back to it, Senator Rennick.

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

What a disgraceful effort by the Labor Albanese government in the first 16 months of its term. It has wasted $400 million on a divisive referendum that has sought to undermine democracy. Those same people talk about giving people a voice and everything like that—well, the people spoke on the weekend. And what did the Labor state premiers do? They turned around on Monday and said, 'Well, we're going to push ahead with a treaty anyway.' The member for Gaven in Queensland said that she didn't learn anything from the Voice—so much for having a voice to actually listen to the people.

The thing is that we already have a voice. It's called the ballot box, and every three years we get to line up and vote for who we want to represent us. If you join a political party, you get to vote in the preselections—or at least you do if you are in the Liberal Party. That is what the Labor Party try to do. They tried to divide the people through identity politics by getting into their personal space. Do you know why they do that? Because they don't have a plan for how to deliver essential services. They don't know a thing about delivering the things that matter because this is the party of command and control. The Labor Party aren't interested in serving you. They are interested in controlling you. Meanwhile, hardworking Australians are doing it tough. They have rising rents. They have rising interest rates. They have rising power prices. They have rising cost of living. What's Labor's answer to this? It's to push identity politics down their throat for the first 16 months of their term, and that is an utter disgrace.

Then we have the issue of transparency and accountability. When Prime Minister Anthony Albanese was opposition leader, he came out and said that his government was going to be so transparent and accountable. What have we got for that? We've got some dodgy dealings going on with Qantas, and the minister won't release the minutes of the meetings that she had with Qantas. But that's not news! Prime Minister Albanese said he would release the minutes of national cabinet when he became Prime Minister. Did he do that? No, he did not do that. Did he support our motion for a quarterly pricing report into the cost of energy and how that cost of energy is formulated? No, he didn't support that. Did he hold a royal commission into COVID? No, he didn't support that. He supported a few COVID alarmists to do a dodgy inquiry that's going to be released in about 18 months time. He's not going to have anyone that is publicly elected scrutinise what went on. No, no, no! He is going to sweep it under the carpet. This is evidence of a Labor Party that is full of hubris, actual hate, guilt and fear-mongering but refuses to deal with the issues that matter to everyday Australians, which are, of course, the cost of living, energy prices et cetera et cetera.

As we move forward, have we talked at all this week about what Labor want to do? No. We've passed family law legislation which seeks to divide families. Why did Labor do that? Well, that's all they know how to do: to walk into the family home, the bedroom, the classroom, the doctor's waiting room, the corporate boardroom—and didn't we see that with the Voice? Didn't we see the corporates make utter fools of themselves? They spent millions and millions of dollars, wasting shareholders' money, on pushing a 'yes' vote that the people didn't want. They had no authority to spend that money. Did any of those companies actually get board approval for that? I doubt it. But that is so typical of the Labor Party and their mates in big business and big unions and big super funds. It was the same with superannuation. There was never an election to see whether or not people wanted 12 per cent of their wages stolen from them. No, no. This is the party of dictatorial one-style government, where they look after the elites and don't care about the battlers.

Catryna Bilyk (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's always interesting when you have to sit and listen to Senator Rennick! I didn't have the option of leaving today, because I'm speaking now, but there you go. I will say that Senator Dean Smith's contribution was quite interesting today, too, because he started talking about the cost of living. Perhaps he was in a different question time to me, because I didn't hear one question today about cost of living—not one. If you're that concerned about cost of living, ask us some questions. As Senator Sheldon said, we know why you don't, because you know that we have the answers to that.

But I actually want to speak about the questions to Minister Farrell. Like Minister Farrell, I was pretty surprised today when he was asked about former senator Ketter's appointment. I remember reading months ago about that appointment. Are you just trawling back through old newspapers? What are you doing to get your questions today? It's quite bizarre. I'd just like to remind those opposite of these people: former minister George Brandis, former minister Mitch Fifield, former senator Arthur Sinodinos and Peter McGauran, just to name four. All those people were appointed to positions by you when you were in government. But the classic one was when former Tasmanian senator David Bushby was appointed to a position one hour after his resignation from the Senate. Don't tell me that there was due process taken there. That's ridiculous. We know that you stacked the AAT. You put former politicians into the AAT. The list is endless. I didn't even bother writing the list down so I could remember them to say. You stacked the arts council. And yet here we have Senator Farrell, who went through due process. Those on the other side have got nothing to offer us, so they come in just trying to claim a scalp—and doesn't it backfire on them?

Those on the other side remind me of a story I read to a group of children the other day. It just keeps coming back to me, especially through question time, in relation to those on the other side. The story was about Henny Penny. I'm not going to say who I think Henny Penny was. For those that don't know the Henny Penny story, Henny Penny was walking through the forest, an acorn fell down, and she thought the sky was falling, and so she started repeating this. This is what they do on the other side. They just create mayhem and distort things to try and win their own ways. They have alarmist stories. They make alarmist comments. They stoke fear amongst people. Henny Penny was convinced that the sky was falling. She kept walking through the forest and met all her friends. She met Goosey Loosey, Ducky Lucky and Turkey Lurkey. They all joined with her. Gee, what does that remind me of? That reminds me of those on the other side. Someone gives them a line, and they just follow it straight down the line. They all join together to repeat the alarmist stories. First of all, we were going to have all the pharmacists close. I haven't seen that happen since we brought in 60-day prescriptions.

We know that those opposite are defined not by what they support but by what they oppose, because all they can say is 'no'. They say no to anything. It's not called the 'no-alition' for nothing. It's led by the Leader of the Opposition, who the Prime Minister has said has nothing positive to offer Australia. You don't come in and offer solutions; you don't have policies. I remember when we first took government. There were people on your side saying very clearly—it's in the Hansard'We don't do policies; we're the opposition.' What a disgrace. Don't come in here and try to gain a scalp over something that is completely legitimate when you guys just have no policies, you say no to everything, you object to everything and you don't want us to progress anything. I think you probably think that's the way you will win government back, but, let me tell you, you won't. (Time expired)

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a great pleasure to rise to make some remarks in relation to this debate following question time. There were questions on the economy and the recent Voice referendum, and it is regrettable that the Voice referendum went the way that it did. I think it would have been much better if there had been a process which could have maximised the centre ground. There were many efforts to try to encourage the government to consider whether there were opportunities to have, for example, a long-running committee process that could have looked at different constitutional reform models and provided an exposure draft bill to deal with a lot of the issues around the detail. I think that ultimately, though, the problem with this process was that the government never wanted to entertain any compromises at any point in time. The failure to compromise to build common ground has led to the defeat of this referendum.

That, frankly, goes to the government's competence. I regret to say that running a process that was so important to so many people in such a poor way really does reflect very poorly on the government's ability to run things and do things. I think that is disappointing for many Australians, irrespective of how they may have voted in prior elections or how they may vote in future elections. That is the question now—its a question of competence. Can this government bring itself together and address the major economic issues of inflation and productivity? Can it address the major issue of housing in this country? Certainly, we know that the Housing Australia Future Fund won't do very much to solve the major issues in our cities and towns. We should get serious about ensuring that the Commonwealth is doing everything it can to drive more supply, because that is going to be the most consequential factor, here. We should drive more supply by incentivising the states and local governments to provide denser housing in the cities, to release more land and to ensure that developers are not squatting on land. All of those things are going to be important.

Furthermore, there is no reason why we shouldn't let Australians, particularly millennials and zoomers, use their own money in superannuation for a first home deposit. We need to find a way to tilt the scales in favour of younger Australians so that they can also get access to a first home. The greatest determinant of whether or not an Australian will have a successful retirement is whether they live in their own house. If you are a retired renter, you will, by definition, have a much tougher retirement than someone that owns their own house. Putting homeownership on the agenda should be the No. 1 priority for the government. That's alongside combating persistently high inflation—which is much higher than that of our competitors—and flagging productivity. Until we see something very serious on housing supply and addressing the demand issue, this will continue to be a problem.

For many people, the super issue is a big issue. The reality is that Labor feel so conflicted about superannuation because the funds and the people that are involved in the sector are so intimately involved with their political movement that they can't see that this is impeding many millennial and Gen Z people from being able to gather the means for a first home deposit. This is why I very much welcome that we have, on our agenda, the $50,000 policy so that people can have 50 grand of their own super for their first home. I think that policy should be significantly expanded because it is, after all, the people's money. It doesn't belong to the government, the banks or the unions. There's no reason that people who have a large mortgage shouldn't be able to use their own money in super as an offset.

These are some of the ideas we want to see the government pursue. Otherwise, what's the point of being the government? It's all well and good to be the dog who caught the car but we need to see some serious attention on housing and a bigger effort to rein in inflation, and we need to get the government to at least open the Productivity Commission reports on what they can do to improve productivity. That is the most important thing the government can do right now.

Question agreed to.