Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Minister for Health) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the nurses' union officials within the gallery today. I hope they have been impressed by the performance of their subjects over there. I hope the effect of the puppets' strings work as well from the gallery as they do for the preselection processes that take place around the country. Of course, some of them have not been preselected from the nurses' union. We have Manser up there who is presumably a product of the CFMEU. Given all the talent and class of the CFMEU that he brings into this place, it needs to be put on the record that he needs to be recognised for the marvellous contribution he makes on a daily basis.

All that you have heard from the Labor Party over the course of the last 10 minutes reflects what we have heard from the Labor Party over the course of the last six years—that is, an attack on those people who are on the front-line services in a desperate cause taken up by Labor at a state and federal level to set up health bureaucracies all around the country to siphon money away from front-line services and to put it into bureaucracies. Why? Not because it is of benefit to patients and to people who are on waiting lists but because it pleases the union bosses.

If you want to know why the Labor Party over the course of the last six years was completely incompetent in government, have a look at the people who fill the benches now compared to those who filled the benches in the Hawke-Keating years. People who had real-life experience served in the Keating and Hawke cabinets, not people like the member for Ballarat, who reported before that she had a lifetime as a bureaucrat within the department and served as a consultant—with all due respect to bureaucrats and consultants. But, just like those behind her, it does not bring professional experience to this place and, frankly, it is reflected when they are in government. They are completely incompetent in the modern age of managing government. That is why they say 'yes' to everybody, they write cheques to everybody who comes through the door, they take money away from front-line services and they rack up record amounts of debt. That is the modern Labor Party. That is what we have seen over the course of the last six years. And that is why, when the election is held in two years' time, the Australian public will make the only decision that they can: that is that the Labor Party has not learnt the lessons of the last six years. People who come from normal nursing backgrounds or normal teaching backgrounds or normal policing backgrounds or backgrounds otherwise cannot get into the modern Labor parliament. They cannot do it because they cannot get past the union secretaries. They cannot get past the union bosses who reward their fellow spirits. It shows in the policy that they put forward and it shows in the way in which they manage. And it has been on display again today. It is not good for democracy in this country.

I ask those on the other side: who has had small business experience? On the other side, put your hand up if you have had small business experience. Just one hand? No, not one hand.

Mr Mitchell interjecting.

Oh, you have worked on the fringes as a union hack marching your way into small business. That does not count. That does not give you the opportunity to say that you put your house on the line. It does not give you the opportunity to say that you employed people and that you understand the hard lessons of business. It does not say that you have life experience—that is demonstrated in these constant interjections and ridiculous contributions.

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