Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I talked about that. You want to shut up—walking into the room half-cocked. You want to think about it, mate. We then have Michaelia Cash, who is in the outer ministry. Apparently, she had been an Abbott supporter but:

… had come to believe that the PMO had become a locus of dysfunction infecting the entire government. Cash brought credibility to the argument that sections of the Right in the party were seriously on the move.

So we have a minister in the outer ministry who had supported the Prime Minister but suddenly does not—and neglects to inform the Prime Minister. That is your obligation, under the practice. That is your obligation as a minister and it is a serious obligation. You are supposed to go to the Prime Minister and say: 'I do not support you anymore. I am resigning.' Then you come into this parliament and tell people. That is the Westminster democracy.

Malcolm Fraser did it when he was a minister in the Gorton government and so did Andrew Peacock. So there are some recent examples in this country, and there are numerous examples in the United Kingdom. This is a serious problem, for the country, because it undermines cabinet government. How can any Prime Minister do anything? How can they be assured of anything if the cabinet is not up-front with them?

We go on from the Michaelia Cash to the member for Bradfield, Paul Fletcher, the parliamentary secretary to Turnbull. He was involved in this, according to The Australian. I do not mind being corrected. If it is people on the backbench, fair enough, but if people are in ministerial office this is a very serious problem. They are supposed to go to the Prime Minister. On and on it goes. The member for Sturt had a meeting with the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister walked away from that meeting, in The Adelaide Club, thinking he had the member for Sturt's support. A very important figure, the member for Sturt, in the Liberal Party.

These are serious problems. This is a serious issue. We should be talking about it, because it is of vital importance to the way we govern this country. I have been concerned about it in my own party, in the past, and I talked about, in my own party, in the past. We fixed our rules so that it could never happen again. But those opposite need to think, clearly, about this. (Time expired)

See this speech in context