Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It has been an exciting week—a week that has been reminiscent of an episode from Game of Thrones. Indeed, we have a new king on the iron throne. It has been a week of intrigue, but also of ambition and ego. We have a new Prime Minister. After the knifing of the member for Warringah, we have a new king in town. But unfortunately we have seen that, to get to this position, the new Prime Minister has left his values at the door and has done a whole a lot of deals to make sure he got the coveted position he has wanted for so long. Unfortunately, in his ambition to get to the top job in Australia he has not shown much ambition for Australia and its people. Whether it is on marriage equality or climate change action, we have seen a deal done with the conservatives of the Liberal Party to ensure that he gets on the iron throne.

Many of these deals are terribly concerning but, as someone from South Australia, I particularly want to highlight the dirty deal that has been done between the National Party and the now Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has now trashed what has been an incredible legacy of his, as well as that of the member for Watson to land a historic deal to have sustainable use of the Murray-Darling system. I have to give credit to the then environment minister who introduced the Water Act, and who is now the Prime Minister, but the member for Watson landed this terribly important deal that made the river sustainable into the future. Now, in a backroom deal, we have seen the now Prime Minister hand control over to the National Party and the Minister for Agriculture. We know that, when it comes to water in South Australia, the Minister for Agriculture will always put South Australia's water allocation last. This is terribly concerning for South Australia. We saw plenty of talk in the media about how Malcolm Turnbull was going to win back South Australia; that was part of his grand plan. Well, putting Barnaby Joyce in charge of water for South Australia does not do a lot for the confidence of South Australians, so that is of particular concern.

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Health) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I hear the member for Hindmarsh has come in and defended the Minister for Agriculture. He should join the member for Barker in saying that he is nervous; at least he has been honest. He is an honest man from South Australia saying that he is incredibly nervous about the National Party taking control of water allocation to South Australia. The member for Hindmarsh should listen to the member for Barker, because he knows what he is talking about.

When it comes to education, which is another passion of mine, we know that, despite changing the salesman, the now Prime Minister still supports the unfair plan to rip money out of universities and to deregulate university fees and charge $100,000 for degrees. Indeed we know that, in an interview with Alan Jones in June last year, the now Prime Minister said:

I support unreservedly and wholeheartedly every element of the budget. Every single one.

I am not sure if the Prime Minister understands that that means he supports $30 billion in cuts to schools. That is equivalent to ripping $3.2 million from every school in Australia. He went on to specifically refer to the higher education legislation and said that he supports the reforms to higher education. That means cutting 20 per cent of funding from Australia's universities, introducing fees for PhD students for the first time and slugging undergraduate students with $100,000 university degrees—saddling students with debt for a lifetime. If this Prime Minister does not agree with that, then he should come into this place and state what his values are—state what he believes in. But unfortunately I think that, as we have seen on so many issues, this Prime Minister has not thought through the issues that are facing Australia or the important concerns that are facing everyday Australians. All he has done is thought about himself. (Time expired)