Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. The title says it all, quite frankly: 'The Abbott government's second anniversary of broken promises, slogans, dysfunction and division'. Mr Abbott told SBS News on the eve of the election that there would be no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no change to the ABC or SBS. We have come a long way since he made that bold statement. What have we seen? $80 billion cut from health and education, which in turn is supposed to put pressure on the states to raise GST. So that is doing two cuts in one, which in itself would be another broken promise.

There are cuts to pensions and cuts to the ABC and SBS. Mr Abbott also said to the people before the election, 'no new taxes'. After all of that, he then chose to bring in the fuel tax. Not only has Mr Abbott broken all of these promises; he also has so little respect for the people of this country that he continues to deny cuts and broken promises. Mr Abbott shows breathtaking contempt in his ability to stand there and continue to say, 'I didn't say that—or if I did, I didn't mean it'. He does not do the proper thing and say, 'I apologise; I made a mistake; let's move on'. He does not seem to be able to do that.

The best, I think, was the 'stable, mature, adult government' line that we got. Mr Abbott said in his address to the National Press Club shortly before the election:

My aim is to lead a no surprises, no excuses government that says what it means and does what it says.

You have to make a choice here. Either this government is incompetent—that is all we can see it as—or it has intentionally misled the Australian people on this issue. Either way, Australians have been let down by the Abbott government. Mr Abbott went on to say, 'A serious country deserves an adult government.' I am still waiting to see either an adult government or the coalition taking government seriously. 'Elect the coalition and you'll have a grown-up, adult government that thinks before it acts.' Well, knights and dames—need I go on? I am gobsmacked by that in itself. They have to tell people, 'We're going to be an adult government.' They have to tell them they are going to be serious. Quite frankly, they have been anything but. If the display over the past two years is a serious attempt at governing, I would hate to see what this government looks like—like sand, the highly orchestrated management smoke-and-mirrors game being run through the Prime Minister's office. To be fair—the coalition wants me to be a little fair—all the blame cannot be laid at the feet of those opposite. After all, they are only doing what they are told to do by the PMO, quite frankly. But that is another problem.

It has failed to pass its budgets. The first budget—what a doozy. The government has only passed about half of the measures it announced in its first budget and it is still trying, badly, to talk to the crossbenchers—maybe talk to the opposition—but it seems almost impossible for this government to talk to anybody but itself. When only half of its first budget has passed, how does the government expect to pass the current budget? Does Treasury assume that the budget will be passed? I think the root of their problem—if I could give them a small piece of advice, but I doubt they will listen—is that the government simply cannot deal with the crossbench senators. Its only tactic seems to be, at least from as far back as I am, either to bully or to try to blackmail senators into some sort of position. But they seem completely incapable of having a negotiation, having a proper discourse with both the opposition and the crossbenchers. I think the root of their problem is that they just do not know how to negotiate. They are too busy and have been too used to having a silver spoon in their mouth and expecting the world to bow to them upon any wish that they have. What they— (Time expired)