Tanya Plibersek (Sydney, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, that was a quote from The Sydney Morning Herald. I am quoting the newspaper. We have division and dysfunction at the heart of this government with a guns for votes scandal.

This comes on top of the member for Warringah stalking the member for Wentworth, the current Prime Minister, on marriage equality. We all know that the Prime Minister actually thinks there should be a free vote in the parliament—he said it before; he said it a year ago—but he is not allowed to do it because the member for Warringah is creeping up behind him day after day.

We know that the member for Wentworth was a very effective advocate for the need to do something about climate change. Whatever happened to the member for Wentworth who was an effective advocate for doing something on climate change? He has gone.

In foreign affairs, we have the member for Warringah popping up not just in Australia but overseas talking about what Europe should be doing, what the United States should be doing and what Australia should be doing. The Prime Minister is unable to lead his country's foreign affairs debate because the member for Warringah is stalking him the whole way.

This government is extraordinary. There were 37 people appointed before the last election, at the last minute, to $370,000 a year jobs. There was not a peep from the Prime Minister. There were big business tax cuts of $50 billion. The benefits mostly flow overseas. Julie Bishop, the Minister for Foreign Affairs, spent $200,000 to send 23 public servants to Paris to—guess what?—talk about cost savings! Incredible, isn't it? There were $500-a-night hotel rooms, so it cost $1,500 for three nights for each of the 23. There were $7, 600 airfares for each of the 23 public servants. It cost $1,500 per person for meals. What a terrific cost-saving junket that is!

I want to finish on how this dysfunction shows itself in schools policy. In New South Wales we have a Liberal Premier and a Nationals education minister who are doing more for Australian children in schools than anybody in this federal government is prepared to do. They are standing up to the federal government and saying: 'We signed a six-year deal. We want the six-year deal honoured. We're not content to receive just a third of the funding that you promised to New South Wales school children and neither are the parents, teachers, principals, school staff and children in New South Wales.'

And what else have we heard today? We have heard that the former Minister for Education authorised an advertising campaign which legal advice to his department said may have breached the law. In fact, they told him: 'It could be found to have engaged in misleading or deceptive conduct under section 18 of the Competition and Consumer Act 2010'. That is $15 million worth of government advertising that may have misled consumers. What did it say? It said what they were after was a fifty-fifty split on university costs—where the student paid 50 per cent and the government paid 50 per cent. The department knew that what they were in fact asking was that students pay something much closer to 60 per cent, not 50 per cent; they were talking about a government contribution of 39½ per cent. It is an extremely dysfunctional government that can deliver— (Time expired)

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