Alan Griffin (Bruce, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy Speaker. Rather than withdraw, I will expand: I will say that one speaks of wisdom and one has wisdom, and that is something also to remember. The member for Longman raised some interesting issues but I think that, at the end of the day, it is a political chamber and it is a chamber where we try and debate issues and we try and do it sometimes with good humour. He raises some very important points but, once again, at the end of the day, there was no plan.

What is a plan? A plan is a detailed proposal for doing or achieving something, and I think that needs to be understood as a starting point.

When we look at this government, what we have seen over the years is many plans. Remember, before the last election there was a plan. That plan involved the fact that there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no cuts to the ABC, no cuts to SBS and no changes to the pension. There were a whole bunch of things that were ruled out, because that was their plan. There were leaflets that were glossy; there were a number of pages that talked about a plan for jobs. That just has not happened.

Then we had the election, and after the election we had a budget. People remember that budget from last year. Those opposite might hope that people have forgotten but, no, they still remember. That was another plan to say that we will all be ruined, that it is hell on wheels. To deal with that, they said: 'We're going to have to cut, cut, cut and go in hard.' That would be only on some people, only on some sectors of society, only on those who are down at the bottom end. We saw a whole range of claims and commitments in that earlier plan, but they all went west.

So we had another plan. That plan went so well with the Australian community—and, frankly, with the government's backbench—that earlier this year there was a need to find another plan. That was a plan to save a leadership. That plan, as we saw come to fruition with respect to the most recent budget, was based on a whole series of premises and commitments that were almost completely at odds with the rhetoric of last year. We have a Treasurer who thought he was—in the first part of this term—Winston Churchill. He would stand there with cigar in one hand and brandy in the other and talk about the need to 'fight them on the beaches' and the fact that we were facing an international existential threat. And off we go. Never have so many owed so much to so few.

Now what do we have? We have Winnie the Pooh. We have a situation of 'off looking for the honey pot': he is a bit slow. It is all okay, life is fine but, at the end of the day, not much else is going to happen.

An opposition member: Who is Tigger?

You could look across there and say 'Who is Tigger?' Tigger jumps around. Tigger is frenetic. He is energetic. I think he has some interest in communications, actually! I think he does.

An honourable member: Eeyore!

Eeyore? There is a selection. The owl, I think, was probably the good member for Berowra—but the owl is not so much in vogue these days.

An opposition member: Who is Piglet?

As to Piglet, I will leave that to others—I have lost a fair bit of weight, so I hope they are not thinking it is me. The point is this: there are so many plans. The plans change. They cannot hold a tune. If this Treasurer and this Prime Minister were actually about holding a tune, having a consistent message, a consistent speech—they think a jingle is an opera. They have no capacity to hold a line for any longer than a 30-second ad. That is their problem.

A plan requires a commitment. It requires commitments on what you will do, and then you have to stick to it and work through it over time. This government seems to find a new plan every other day. And because they find a new plan every other day we all know, on this side of the House, there will have to be another plan for the leadership in a matter of weeks, because they cannot hold the plan together. (Time expired)

See this speech in context