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

My question is to the Prime Minister. Yesterday the Prime Minister was asked three times to rule out pay cuts for AFP officers, including his own protection detail. Given that the Prime Minister failed to categorically rule out these pay cuts three times yesterday, I ask again: will the Prime Minister rule out pay cuts for AFP officers for working late nights and weekends?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As the honourable member knows, the enterprise agreement between the AFP and the government is being negotiated at an agency level, as it always has been—in other words, between the commissioner and the members. Those negotiations are ongoing, and of course it will require a vote of the members to be concluded. That is the first point. The second point is the hypocrisy of the Leader of the Opposition, seeking now to protect or defend the Australian Federal Police. In government they cut the funding for our security services again and again. Remarkably, after 50,000 unlawful arrivals came on 800 boats, the Labor Party cut millions of dollars out of the customs service. They cut our abilities to defend our borders, just as their policies made our borders less secure.

Again and again, Labor has failed to step up to keep Australia safe. They failed to invest in the equipment, in the ships that our defence forces need—not one naval vessel commissioned from one Australian yard in six years. And in terms of the AFP in particular, it is interesting to note that the Leader of the Opposition claims to be speaking for the AFP today but only earlier today his shadow Attorney-General, the member for Isaacs, was accusing the AFP of acting improperly—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Isaacs.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

and acting under political direction, when he knows as well as we all do that the AFP act utterly independently—rigorously independently—of government. They always have done and always will. That is the hypocrisy of the Labor Party for you.

Ms Plibersek interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Sydney has already been warned copious times. She will leave under 94(a).

The member for Sydney then left the chamber.