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

Today, on the first anniversary of the Prime Minister's ascension to the highest elected job in this country, she has refused to defend her own government's record. Mr Speaker, we tried, as you know, a few moments ago to get the Prime Minister on her feet in this chamber to defend the fact that in the 12 months that she has held the top job of this country nothing of substance has been achieved. You would think that today would be a day of some significance to this Prime Minister because it is not often that a deputy assassinates a leader. You would think that, having done the unprecedented and assassinated a first-term, elected Prime Minister, she would at least think it was important to defend the action that she had taken. You would think that she would at least believe it necessary to give this parliament and, through this parliament, the Australian people an account of her stewardship. But, no, this Prime Minister is so contemptuous of the ordinary decencies of public life, so contemptuous of the Australian people who are represented in this parliament that yet again she has scurried from the chamber rather than face up to the ordinary norms of democratic accountability. Now, having run away from a suspension of standing and sessional orders and having run away from a censure, she is equally running away from a matter of public importance debate.

What do we have to do to get this Prime Minister into this House to give a proper account of herself? Truly, what do members of parliament have to do in this chamber to get this Prime Minister to listen? I am doing my best. I think the Australian public are watching this chamber and watching this Prime Minister and they are marking the complete contempt that she has for the ordinary standards of democratic accountability. John Howard would never have run away from this parliament. Paul Keating would never have run away from this parliament. Bob Hawke would never have run away from this parliament. I have sat in this parliament with prime ministers who were far from perfect, and they did not necessarily like criticism, but they understood that a certain amount of criticism came with the territory, they understood that a certain amount of criticism came with the job and they never shrank from it. They never shrank from hearing it, unlike this Prime Minister.

This is the first birthday of the Prime Minister's premiership and I have to say that it is a very unhappy birthday. What she has demonstrated over the last 12 months is that she is a lesser leader—a lesser Prime Minister—than the man she replaced. It is not that the person she replaced was that good. He was far from good. He was by no standards one of Australia's great prime ministers. But I tell you what, Mr Deputy Speaker: he did believe in a few things and he would not run away from this parliament. He would never have run away from this parliament the way his successor has today.

Twelve months ago, as justification for the unprecedented step of assassinating an elected Prime Minister, the current Prime Minister said that the government had lost its way. She nominated three subjects on which the government had lost its way. She said that it had lost its way on border protection, she said that it had lost its way on the mining tax and she said that it had lost its way on climate change. On every single one of those subjects that the Prime Minister nominated as justifying the political assassination of her predecessor, things have gone from bad to worse. The mining tax, which she told us was settled during the election campaign, is far from settled. The reason why it is far from settled is that this Prime Minister did not take the whole of the mining industry into her confidence. She sat down and did a deal with three big multinationals. I have got nothing against BHP, Rio and Xstrata. They are all good companies. They employ tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Australians directly or indirectly and they are vital to our nation's prosperity. But they are not the whole of the mining industry. What this Prime Minister should have done, if she wanted to be a Prime Minister for all Australians—as every Prime Minister must surely aspire to—is to sit down with the smaller miners too, particularly the miners that are uniquely, distinctively and wholly Australian. But, no, that was not good enough for this Prime Minister.

Then we have border protection. This is a Prime Minister who has had 89 boats and almost 5,000 illegal arrivals since she said that her predecessor had mucked it up. Since she said that her predecessor did not know what he was doing and had lost his way, we have had 89 boats and 5,000 arrivals. I tell you what: the people smugglers have not lost their way, have they? The government has lost its way but not the people smugglers under this Prime Minister. First of all, we had the East Timor solution, which sank somewhere in the Timor Sea. We had the Manus Island solution. The only problem with that was that she had not actually bothered to tell the PNG government she was about to make the announcement. Then we had the Malaysian people swap. It is very interesting, isn't it—the justification that the Prime Minister has given for the Malaysian people swap in this parliament? She boasts that the Malaysian people swap is better than Nauru because, she says, the Malaysian people swap is tougher than Nauru. She wants people to be caned—she really does. She wants people to be caned.

But what about the awesome silence of members opposite about this Prime Minister, of members behind this Prime Minister? The Labor Party is the parliamentary party which said for years that the former Prime Minister and the former government were being deeply inhumane for sending boat people to Nauru. 'Costly', 'unsustainable' and wrong in principle I think is what the current Prime Minister said about it. She said that there was no way any boat people would ever be sent to a country that had not signed the UN convention on refugees—yet another lie. It is not just a lie about sending people to countries that had not signed the UN convention but it was a lie when she said she thought that there was something inhumane about Nauru. Nothing could be more inhumane than sending people who have arrived on our shores looking for comfort and succour to a country where they might be exposed to that kind of a legal system. And shame on members opposite for being so silent and having such double standards on this issue. How can members of the Labor Left look at themselves in the mirror anymore? How can they, when they are now giving grudging support to a Prime Minister who wants to treat boat people with far less humanity than ever took place under the former government?

Then of course we get to climate change. Perhaps enough has already been made today of the fact that this Prime Minister has been utterly deceptive on this subject. Let me make this point before I move on to other topics. This issue is, if anything, even more contentious now than it was when the Prime Minister politically assassinated her predecessor. If there is one thing that this Prime Minister has achieved, it is not quite a deep and lasting consensus the way she meant but that she has united this country as rarely before in opposition to the government's climate change policies. That is what she has done.

There is just a monumental incompetence that afflicts this government—whether it be the 260 childcare centres that were stopped after just 38; whether it be the promised 2,650 trade training centres, of which fewer than 100 have been built; whether it be the 38 GP superclinics, of which fewer than a dozen are operating and none of which are operating anything like the 24 hours that would be necessary for them to take the pressure off emergency departments; whether it be the pink batts that famously or notoriously, as the case may be, were put into people's roofs only to catch fire and then have to be taken out; or whether it be the school halls that this government and this Prime Minister have built at a cost which is, frankly, a crime against the taxpayers of this country.

There is no end to the incompetence and the deception of this government and this Prime Minister. There is the baby bonus that was never going to be means tested but has been means tested. There was the private health insurance rebate that was never going to be means tested but has been means tested or at least is proposed to be means tested. There was the childcare benefit that was never going to be means tested but is means tested. There is the surplus. Oh my God, this mythical surplus! Please introduce us to this surplus! What this government has actually done is give us, on its own record and on its own forecasts, not a surplus but $150 billion worth of accumulated deficit in just five years. Members opposite now have the cheek and hide to start talking about a surplus that has not yet been achieved and, on Labor's record, never will be achieved.

Today of course we have the National Broadband Network. Talk about throwing good money after bad. There is $12 billion being handed over not to improve services but to close services down. Decent and competent governments would weep. Every predecessor of this Prime Minister would weep at the record of this government. We have a Prime Minister who does not trust her colleagues. She is now muzzling them from speaking to the media. We have a Prime Minister who does not trust the people. The last thing this Prime Minister would ever be is honest with the Australian people about what she intends. She was not honest with them before the last election about the carbon tax. She wants to sneak the carbon tax through a parliament that has no mandate for it because she does not want it to be an issue at the next election. Try that one—the carbon tax not being an issue at the next election! She does not even trust this parliament, which is why she will not come in and give an account of herself to this parliament.

This Prime Minister survives for one reason and for one reason only: not because she is now the preferred leader of the Labor Party but only because the Independents have indicated that that is the only way this government survives. Perhaps when the Minister for Defence Materiel, at the table, stands up to talk, he might let us know what it is like to be a member of a political party whose leader spends far more time talking to Independent members of parliament, whose leader spends far more time in the electorates of Independent members of parliament and whose leader spends far more time listening to the policy ideas of Independent members of parliament than she does listening to, talking to and visiting with the members of her own party. She has abandoned the members of her own party in favour of the Independents because they are the only people who are keeping this weak and hopeless Prime Minister in office.

It is 12 months on from the bloodiest political assassination in Australia's history. Why did she do it? What has it all been for? It has not been for a great cause. It has not been for a policy achievement. We know what it has been for—nothing but this Prime Minister's ego and ambition. That is all. She was not ambitious for the higher things; she was just ambitious for a higher job. It is 12 months on, but the Australian people still do not have a clue what this Prime Minister really stands for.

See this speech in context