Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I am glad the Leader of the Opposition has spoken about trust. Nobody, through his life, has betrayed the trust of Australians more consistently than this Leader of the Opposition. This is a man who, eyes filled with tears, talked about the importance of raising the Medicare levy by half a per cent to better fund the National Disability Insurance Scheme. He called on the coalition to support it, and we did. But now, of course, when the opportunity comes to fill that gap that he and his party left, he chooses tactics over principle, politics over policy and his own shabby political path of self-interest over the advice of the majority of his own shadow cabinet.

It does not just stop there. How long and how often have we listened to the lectures about needs-based funding? How often has David Gonski's name been taken in vain by this posturing fellow—a fellow dripping with empathy and concern about Australian students but then does 27 secret deals so appalling that David Gonski's collaborator Ken Boston described them as a 'corruption? Seventy-five times he is on the record supporting—

See this speech in context