Steve Irons (Swan, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I take this opportunity to congratulate you, Mr Deputy Speaker Scott, on your appointment. I know your passion for and commitment to the processes of parliament. It is great to see you in that position. I would also like to take this opportunity, as it is my first speech in the 44th Parliament, to welcome back all the members who have been here before and the new members who have just arrived who make up the 44th Parliament.

Today in question time the Prime Minister stated that this government will carefully, steadily and methodically get down to the business of government. So this MPI is a bit of a quandary for me. Some of the statements made by members on the opposite side of the chamber are—as my friends the member for Higgins and the member for Forrest have said—quite hypocritical and sanctimonious. The arguments that they have made are not relevant to the MPI.

The Leader of the Opposition, the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, the shadow Treasurer and the member for Corio have said that there is division within the coalition executive. I just wonder whether the opposition remember what happened in the last six years in this place. We had three Prime Ministers. We had people backgrounding. We had people working against each other. There was complete division within the Labor Party. Yet the member for Corio stands up here today and says there is division within our executive, within this government. I have not seen any of that. I think the government is solid and the executive is solid as well.

The opposition, the previous government, have no record to stand on. Let us for a moment consider how the previous government lived up to its promises. In 2010 the then Prime Minister told the Australian people that there would be no carbon tax under the government that she led. The Labor Party government said that there would be a return to surplus in 2012-13, come hell or high water. They would stop the boats through a deal with East Timor. This was the Labor government that promised to be economic conservatives, to have a one-in, one-out approach—

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