Bill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

This government has got the wrong priorities. The Prime Minister has been under pressure for two days in a row with his most ridiculous honours scheme, which the whole of Australia regards as a laughing-stock—including, it would appear, the Minister for Communications, who referred to it as the precedent set by Guatemala and Peru. What we have seen in the last two days is the Prime Minister of Australia lose his composure. We know why he has lost his composure and we know why he gets personal. It is because he knows deep down, in the part of his heart which he does not examine often enough, that he has made a colossal mistake.

Since this government has been elected, we have made it very clear that this is a government who will never fight for anyone's jobs but their own. We have been at pains to demonstrate that they have the wrong priorities. But this week there have been three dreadful mistakes which have, I think, pushed the opposition's message right into the core of public consciousness.

There was this laughable bunyip aristocracy nonsense from the fawning attitudes of a very few in the government, who have said, when there is an economic problem like unemployment, when there is a challenge about the budget, 'What should we do? Let's create some knights and some dames.' What a very weak proposition that is. It is not just the opposition who know that that is weak. I compliment members of the government; I compliment the anonymous backbencher—not for his courage but maybe for his wisdom in staying anonymous—who said, 'This is absolutely insane.' We are having a sweep on this side on who in the government was smart enough to have thought of that; we have come up with 25 names.

Then we get to the member for Herbert, Ewen Jones. To be fair, he has a good turn of phrase sometimes. He makes us laugh, at least until that is made illegal in this House! He at least said, 'I guess there are other issues that we have got to work on.' Then you have Senator Ron Boswell. In 'Boswellian' style, without necessarily a lot of words, he expressed his surprise at this development. I acknowledge the elegant understatement of the member over there, whose seat I have momentarily forgotten, Mr Broadbent.

An honourable member: McMillan.

The member for McMillan. He is, I think, a proper, old school Liberal from the days when the Liberal Party might have been someone you could vote for. He said it was 'an interesting surprise'. I think that is a masterful understatement.

I, of course, liked what the Minister for Communications had to say last night. It was written up as 'gently mocking' the proposal—gentle! He is a known republican. I do not want him to run the next republic campaign, because we will lose it. I do know that he did say, dipping into its vast repository of republican knowledge, 'Well, they do it in Guatemala, they do it in Brazil and they do it in Peru, so why shouldn’t we do it here?' Why not indeed? I give him points for trying.

The knights and dames decision is not actually the worst decision they have made this week. It is certainty the funniest one they have made this week. One of the other bad decisions is the refusal to come out with a commission of audit. That is a cowardly government.

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