Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

It is not just the chaos of the last 20 minutes, Speaker; it is the chaos that has infected this parliament over the government's attempts to muzzle the media through these media regulations they are introducing into the parliament and proposing to pass in the House tonight. That is the chaos to which I am referring.

The government have so lost their way that they are now in the parliament tonight planning to gag a debate about freedom of speech.

The government have sunk so low that not only are they introducing bills that they intend to pass tonight that muzzle a free press in this country and introduce the most draconian media laws in the history of the Commonwealth outside wartime but they are also planning tonight to gag that debate, to apply the guillotine to stop the debate on the government's media regulation. I know it is amazing and surprising that the government could have sunk so low, could have become so unscrupulous, that they would actually be seeking to gag a debate about freedom of speech, but that is the plan of the government tonight in this House.

Why would the government have sunk so low that it would be planning on gagging a debate on freedom of speech in this parliament? I will tell you why. Because everything the Prime Minister and the government do is about hour-by-hour survival. These media laws were dreamt up by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy. They were shanghaied through the cabinet process. We know that half the members of the cabinet were not even present when the debate was held. Many of them did not even know the debate was going to be held. The Minister for Foreign Affairs has made it clear that he did not even know there was going to be a debate in cabinet about these media laws. The minister opposite, the Minister for Health, was stuck with me on a plane in Sydney. The Cabinet Secretary was stuck with me on the same plane. The Minister for School Education, Early Childhood and Youth was stuck with me on the same plane in Sydney. None of them made the cabinet debate. We know from the reports of that cabinet—because the government leaks like a sieve—that members of the cabinet did not even have briefing notes. They had an oral briefing from the minister for communications. They were not given the opportunity to examine what the government was proposing because all this Prime Minister wanted to do, in the dying days of this government, was introduce another grand distraction to keep the member for Griffith at bay for another week or two. But I doubt that will occur, because these media laws will be the final rock upon which this prime ministership breaks. This will be the final rock into which the Prime Minister sails the Labor Party ship before the next election.

Who could have believed the number of enemies this government has made over the last two and a half years, whether it is live cattle exporters, right through to, now, the media industry in this country, by trying to introduce the most draconian measures to regulate the press outside wartime in Australia? We know that the Prime Minister shanghaied the cabinet last Tuesday to introduce these laws. We know that the caucus did not get any opportunity to debate these changes or the process by which the minister for communications decided to introduce these laws.

And to the members opposite who are being so voluble in attacking me during my contribution, at least I have the decency to stand up here at the dispatch box and argue my case. Not one member of the Labor back bench is prepared to defend these laws. The members of the Labor back bench and front bench were pulled from the speakers list today so that these bills would go through the parliament tonight, to try again for another day to stave off the inevitable replacement of the Prime Minister by the member for Griffith, or the member for Hotham, or the member for Isaacs, or anyone other than this Prime Minister the Labor Party will cling to like a drowning sailor to try to save this disastrous failing government.

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