Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Okay: 'current member for Corangamite, temporarily'. It is only natural. When there is a problem, who do they call for? They call for the Leader of the House, or, as he prefers to be known, 'the equally senior co-convener of Defence'—so long as the Minister for Defence is not in the room and can hear him. Of course, when the parliament is falling apart, they come up with a fix! Is their fix in parliament something as simple as saying, 'Yeah, you've got be here until the end of parliament'? No. Is it something as easy as saying, 'Check what you are voting on before you vote'? Instead, it is, 'Innovative, agile electronic voting.'

Electronic voting, that is going to fix it all! I can just see how electronic voting will go with this mob: the Minister for Revenue and Financial Services, gearing up to condemn herself. You can hear Siri saying, 'Don't do that!' Remember when the member for Wentworth invented the Internet, there was a little paperclip they had Microsoft Word! You can just see it saying, 'It looks like you are trying to be a minister. Do you need help?' Then there is the other place, where there is estimates. I want to give a shout out to Senator Penny Wong. I do not know how she does it. A five-hour conversation with the Attorney-General and the congeniality twins, Senator O'Sullivan and Senator Macdonald! Two men ready for the dawn of the 20th century!

Of course, satin George always brings us in with the news. In the final hours before caretaker kicked in, Senator Brandis made 37 appointments to the AAT. Those are jobs that pay a salary of up to $370,000. Let me save you doing the maths: $13.7 million, almost seven times what the Prime Minister donated to his own survival. No positions were advised, no department advice was provided and no-one has checked for the conflicts of interest. Although, the good news is: we do not know if they are qualified, we do not know if they are comprised and we do not know if they have got the job on merit, but they may well be up to being Attorney-General in this government!

Unfortunately, we see that under this government—whilst they are good at job-creating for their own donors and supporters—too many Australians, as we have learnt today, are missing out. We have seen that tens of thousands of full-time jobs are going in this country. The only thing Australians have got consoled themselves with is this mob opposite us. This week, the government did cross a serious line by talking about tampering with a 20-year bipartisan commitment to a safer Australia, dishonouring the legacy of John Howard and disregarding the warnings we tragically see from the United States so frequently. Do they really think that their anti-union, anti-worker, anti-fairness agenda is worth more than changing the rules around lever-action weapons on the streets? They are not fit to be the government.

Then they get caught in that farrago of lies. Clearly, the former Prime Minister has educated us today and, whilst he was having a go at the opposition, we know his real target was the Prime Minister. He said there were no deals done, yet what we see clearly is the Minister for Justice and the Minister for Immigration and Border Protection, in written correspondence, offering Senator Leyonhjelm—in return for their vote on other matters—changes to the rules around these lever-action shotguns. When the Prime Minister has a choice between—

Mr Keenan interjecting—

I think you have said enough for today, Minister for Justice! You saw the Prime Minister: he had a choice to backup the member for Warringah, but the member for Wentworth is so consumed by his dislike and his disregard for the member for Warringah that he is happy to buttress these incompetents in their current jobs when they have been caught out dealing votes for guns. Australians do not want this horsetrading; they do not want this horsetrading on things as fundamental as their gun laws. Can we find out from the government what they actually think about the gun laws and where they should be? Any number of times this week we have invited our Prime Minister to inform us and to tell us what he is doing in conjunction with the Australian Federal Police advice. These are the questions which those opposite must answer.

But the real lesson we have learnt this week is that this government and this Prime Minister are so weak, so pathetic and so desperate that any group of bullies can tweak the Prime Minister's tail and any group insurgents can stand him up. The one thing we have learnt about the member for Wentworth in just over a year of his stewardship of this nation is that he will sell out his principles, he will sell out his previous positions and he will do anything to keep his job. Tragically, this nation may well have another two years of this weak leadership. But we promise the people of Australia that we will call out the weakness, the lack of conscience and the mercenary nature of doing deals, votes for guns and the like. We will never stops standing up to a weak, rotten government.

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