Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Opposition Business (House)) Share this | Hansard source

This is extraordinary. What is happening right now is that the government have decided that this place has fallen apart so completely that they are dissolving the parliament for the day entirely. There will be no question time today because they don't know who their ministers are. There will be no question time today because they don't know who their Prime Minister is. There will be no question time today because those opposite have stopped governing. Those opposite are obsessed with each other. But not one of their conversations has anything to do with the Australian people. Not one of the conversations that they're having here go outside their jobs. Every conversation that is happening on the government benches today is about their promotion, their entitlements and their sense of entitlement. That's what's going on today.

No government in living memory has dissembled so much that they decided the parliament couldn't meet. No government in living memory has said: 'It's all too hard. We're just going home.' No government in living memory has looked at the parliament, where technically they have a majority, and said, 'No, we'd rather just not be there at all.' This is the same day that those opposite used their numbers, by a majority of one, to protect the person from the High Court who might be in charge of this nation by the end of the day. They used a majority of one to protect somebody from the scrutiny of the High Court, someone who might not even be eligible to be a member of parliament. And whose vote protected him? His own! Doesn't that sense of entitlement say everything about what the modern Liberal Party has become? The Liberal Party of today have no interest in anyone but themselves. They have completely fallen apart, collapsed, to the extent now that they don't want to have a parliament at all.

Normally people think that, one day, when they get into this place, they might get to be a minister answering questions in question time. There are seven or eight them at the moment, this morning, thinking that maybe this afternoon they will be answering questions at the dispatch box as Prime Minister, and there are about 30 others who have all been promised they will be in the front row by the end of the day. But now they discover that the salary packet of those jobs is more important than the accountability of those jobs.

Be in no doubt: if there were ever a justification for question time, it's today. Be in no doubt: in the history of this parliament, if there were ever a government that had questions to answer, it's this mob today. If there were ever ministers whose loyalty were to be questioned, it's today, because we remember that the only reason they could be in the position they're in now is if ministers opposite misled this place yesterday. If they were telling the truth yesterday, I don't see how they're in the spill territory as a government today. It does not add up.

For those opposite: think about what you have all become. Have a think about it. Have a think about that moment when you might have thought, 'If I come to parliament I would achieve X, Y or Z.' Because now those opposite are about to vote that they'd rather not have a parliament at all. That's the question that's being asked. We're not about to ask a question about a particular policy decision. We're about to resolve in this House whether the parliament should be sitting at all.

If they had wanted to suspend the House for their party room meeting, we would have allowed that. We would have agreed to that. We were ready to agree to that. But instead of them deciding they will just suspend for their party room, they're terrified that they have no idea of what state they'll be in after their party room. They have no idea what this country will look like in an hour's time. But there's one group of people that aren't being consulted at the moment. They're called the voters. In all the consultation that's going on, none of them are consulting the voters. The people's house is here, and they should be accountable today.

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