Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

Standing orders must be suspended because of the revelations overnight about the squalid culture in the Prime Minister's office, about how they sought to use Aboriginal people for tawdry, deceitful purposes. That sort of culture has no place in any public office, let alone the office of the Prime Minister. That is why standing orders must be suspended.

To compound the error, this wretched series of events surrounding Australia Day, the Prime Minister gave a press conference—and that is the subject of the motion we propose to debate—to explain how and why this Aboriginal tent embassy protest came about. That public explanation by the Prime Minister now appears to be false. The Prime Minister was given the opportunity in question time today to correct the public record. The Prime Minister has relied in this House on the transcript of Ms Kim Sattler, but there is a contradiction between the transcript the Prime Minister relied upon and the actual words spoken by Ms Sattler. And the Prime Minister has refused to correct the record. That is why standing orders must be suspended—because this Prime Minister must explain to the House and to the Australian people why she has conducted herself in this way, so debasing the high office of Prime Minister.

Take, for example, the fantasy the Prime Minister has invented about her conduct during the overthrow of the former Prime Minister. Standing orders should be suspended to debate the new revelations about that matter. This Prime Minister would have us believe that she was the reluctant candidate, drafted against her will into the challenge that she did not want to mount. This is important and it is why standing orders must be suspended—because the Australian people were deeply unsettled by the unprecedented removal of the former Prime Minister and they have been given no plausible explanation except naked, ruthless ambition. The problem for this Prime Minister is that her own colleagues and ministers are contradicting her version of events—a version of events invented by the Prime Minister and given to the public but which is the opposite of what actually happened. That is why cabinet ministers have been doing the numbers overnight.

Standing orders must be suspended as there are fresh revelations reflecting on the Prime Minister which must be debated. Her office was drafting an acceptance speech for when she became Prime Minister at least two weeks prior to the challenge, yet the Prime Minister wants the public to believe that she knew nothing about the plot or the challenge that she was about to make. The US Secretary of State knew about the challenge two weeks before it occurred. The Australian ambassador in Washington was called in to give assurances to the United States that there would be no destabilisation of the relationship when there was a change of leader.

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