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

I seek leave to move a motion of no confidence in the Prime Minister.

Leave not granted.

I move:

That so much of the standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Warringah moving immediately—That the Prime Minister no longer possesses the confidence of this House for repeatedly failing to keep his promises and honour his word which has diminished the Office of Prime Minister and his government, and, in particular for:

(1)

seeking a national emergency exemption to run a tax-payer funded political advertising campaign against the mining tax when a real national emergency is occurring in over 240,000 roofs across the country yet there is no ad campaign to warn homeowners;

(2)

declaring government advertising a “cancer on democracy” in 2007 but once elected, scrapping his own system of auditor-general approvals and then going around the replacement committee with a special exemption in a desperate attempt to save his political hide;

(3)

ripping $38 million out of taxpayer pockets for an advertising campaign about the new great big tax on mining which isn’t even draft legislation, let alone passed by the Parliament; and

(4)

promising to usher in a new era of accountability and to end the blame game, but instead, upon coming to government, leading a government that is spin over substance, reduced to breaking its own rules and utterly shameless with over 52 examples of broken election commitments.

The public of Australia do not know it, but this is actually day four of a national emergency. There are no guns in the street, there are no sandbags around government buildings, but it is a national emergency in the eyes of the Prime Minister because the people who mine the ore that makes the steel and the people who quarry the sand that builds the sandbags are critical of this government. This is not a national emergency for our country; it is just a political emergency for our Prime Minister. We know, because the Prime Minister has just admitted it, that he has been planning an advertising campaign for months. Yet this man, who parades as a paragon of political virtue, has gone around his own rules for a political advertising campaign that he now admits he was planning for months. This shameless Prime Minister is prepared to spend $38 million advertising a tax that he cannot explain, he cannot defend and he will not even legislate until after the next election. This is a Prime Minister who will not advertise to alert 240,000 families to the problems in their roofs but is prepared to advertise to save his own political hide. This Prime Minister’s political future means more to him than the health and safety of 240,000 Australian families.

This is a government which is looting the Treasury to pay for the government’s re-election campaign. This is a government which is looting the Treasury because this Prime Minister cannot do the job ordinarily expected of a Prime Minister—that is, to explain, justify and defend the policies of the government. There is the $30 million for climate change advertising, even though he has given up on an ETS until the election after next. There is $29.5 million for hospital advertising, even though he has not yet got a national deal, and, in any event, there is no real reform involved. There is $16 million for National Broadband Network advertising, even though he has not even got a business plan for his $43 billion white elephant. And now he wants taxpayers to shell out $38 million for an advertising campaign that is not legislated, and he is breaking his own rules to do so. This is $38 million for an advertising campaign for a tax change that was not part of the Henry review, was not legislated and is not compliant with the guidelines. He has junked his own rules to fund his own campaign. He has junked his own principles to save his political skin.

This is not just about the advertising; this is fundamentally about this Prime Minister’s integrity. Even by the Prime Minister’s usual standards of sanctimony, he has engaged in self-righteousness of a high order. Let us remember what this Prime Minister said of government advertising repeatedly in the months before he was elected to high office. He described government advertising not just as a bad thing, not just as something that he would rather not have; he said it was nothing less than a long-term ‘cancer on democracy’. This is the Prime Minister who says, of course, that climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time—and he says that government advertising is a long-term cancer on our democracy. In fact, he made a compact, if not with the Australian people, at least with Kerry O’Brien. He made a compact that there would be no government advertising whatsoever in the three months prior to an election unless it had been entered into by an explicit agreement between the leader of the government and the Leader of the Opposition. That is what he said on The 7.30 Report. And Kerry O’Brien said to him:

Is that what you will promise to do in a Labor Government?

And here the Prime Minister channels Dietrich Bonhoeffer, his great inspiration in government. His actions have made Graham ‘whatever it takes’ Richardson look like a paragon of political virtue. Channelling Dietrich Bonhoeffer, the Prime Minister said to Kerry O’Brien:

That is an absolute undertaking from us. I believe this is a sick cancer within our system. It’s a cancer on democracy.

Perhaps that is what the Prime Minister is crossing out as he frantically scribbles his notes over there, but at least on this occasion he is not running away from defending himself—but how can he defend himself? This is an absolute betrayal of a commitment that he gave not once but many times prior to the last election.

Not only has he betrayed the commitments that he made to the Australian people but also he has clearly misled this parliament. All of us can remember that last week he was asked about the impact of his great big new tax on mining on the currency markets and on the share markets, and he said that any suggestion that there is an impact on currency markets and share markets is ‘wrong, wrong, wrong’. Who has revealed the Prime Minister as telling a lie, lie, lie? None other than his own minister, the Special Minister of State, Senator Ludwig, who said, ‘I further accept the Treasurer’s advice that tax reform changes impact on financial markets.’ He went on to say, ‘I am satisfied that a compelling reason for an exemption exists, particularly given the nature and extent of misinformation against a backdrop of continuing market volatility.’ This is a Prime Minister who just cannot be trusted. He cannot be trusted to be straight with the Australian people and, as we know this morning from Simon Benson, he cannot even be trusted to be straight with Morris Iemma, his own state Labor colleague. He lies shamelessly. He lies shamelessly to anyone and everyone, if he thinks there is an advantage in it for him.

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