Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

As the member for Lalor famously said of the Leader of the Opposition in her now notorious Australian Story interview, he is trying—he is very trying—and, on today’s evidence, he certainly is not succeeding in making any kind of a case against this government and its ministers. By his behaviour in this House today and throughout this week, he is confirming the correctness of the member for Lalor’s criticism of the parliamentary tactics that he has been pursuing for these last two months.

The Leader of the Opposition has claimed in his suspension motion that the government has deliberately restricted access to the Cole royal commission. This is a total untruth. This is completely unfair to the record of this government, as is recognised by a very senior official of the Volcker inquiry who was reported in the Australian today. As that senior official made very clear, no government on earth has cooperated with the Volcker inquiry more fully or responded with more openness and transparency to the Volcker findings than this government of Australia.

It is absolutely obvious from the Leader of the Opposition’s speech—carefully written and typed out for him and badly read with the kind of falsetto passion for which he has become notorious—that members opposite are not interested in the Cole inquiry. They do not care what the Cole inquiry investigates. They do not care what the Cole inquiry finds. As far as they are concerned, this government is guilty. It does not matter what Cole talks about or investigates; as far as members opposite are concerned, the government is guilty. We are always guilty as far as they are concerned. It does not matter what we do, we are guilty of incompetence and impropriety! It shows the desperation of members opposite—it does not matter what we do, their tune is always the same. If there is one characteristic of this opposition that distinguishes it and debases it compared with the Labor Party in times past, it is that it is never prepared to give any credit to anyone, particularly anyone from this government.

Today we saw absolutely nothing new—no new material, no new arguments. It was just the recycled leader recycling his indignation. The reason that all this bluff and bluster from the opposition in every question time since December last year is simply not washing with the general public is that the general public understand that there is something utterly implausible about the allegation that a government which was contemplating military action against Saddam Hussein should have simultaneously been knowingly funding Saddam Hussein. It is utterly implausible that this would be the case. That is why the general public are perfectly content not to listen to the bluster of the Leader of the Opposition but to wait for the forensic investigations of former Justice Terry Cole, a judge of the highest integrity and the highest standing, who should be allowed to get on with his job.

Every day that the Leader of the Opposition focuses on this matter is another day when he does not have to deal with what is really his most pressing responsibility, and that is sorting out the problems inside his own party. As the member for Lalor said very rightly in her excellent—in many respects—speech to the Sydney Institute, the Australian people will never trust with government someone who cannot govern his own party.

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