Terri Butler (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for the Environment and Water) | Hansard source

This is a government that has been failing to do its job and a Prime Minister who has been failing to do his job, and it is the people of Australia who suffer as a consequence of the Prime Minister's and the government's failure to do their jobs. What has this government been up to in recent times? You might have thought that they might have been trying to address the RAT shortage, or that they might have been trying to address job insecurity, or that, in my portfolio, they might have been trying to address their own failures to deliver recovery plans for threatened species or their failures in relation to the Murray-Darling Basin—but no.

Here's a catalogue of some of the things this government has been up to in recent times. Let's start with voting against their own antidiscrimination legislation. They voted against it, which was quite a shock to all of us who had spent a significant amount of time in the parliament advocating for antidiscrimination and antivilification provisions in relation to faith. They voted against their own legislation in the face of that debate.

They have also been spending their time looking up speeches made in 1991. I remember 1991 pretty well. I was in year 9 at Cairns State High School and it was a good year, but I don't think anyone would really care what I had to say in 1991 about anything. Yet we've got this desperate Treasurer and this desperate government sitting around trawling through the Leader of the Opposition's speeches from 1991 because they can't be bothered doing their jobs. They'd rather play up and play political games instead.

What else have they been doing? Trawling through minor-party websites. The Treasurer has the highlighter out and he's been getting printouts of the minor-party websites, looking for things he can highlight so he can bring them into question time and run an amazing 'gotcha'. What a crushing blow that is when you find something on a minor-party website and you wave it around in question time!

What else? Well, they've clearly all been auditioning for the Liberal Party leadership. That's very much what's on the minds of the Minister for Defence and the Treasurer himself. They all think the Prime Minister is a chance to be gone pretty soon, given his woeful performance as Prime Minister.

What else have they been doing? They have been leaking against each other. Who is leaking what? Cabinet leaks? We're hearing from Channel Ten there is another story on leaks tonight. They are a government so busy fighting each other that they cannot be bothered fighting for the people of Australia. That's who this government is. That's what they're spending their time doing.

What else have they been doing? Media stunts. Running their fingers through strangers' hair. They've been playing the ukulele. I would never hold playing the ukulele against someone—it is a terrific instrument; we've all heard that beautiful Hawaiian cover of 'Over the Rainbow', which is absolutely lovely—but why is the Prime Minister playing a Hawaiian instrument on national television when Australians are crying out for the aged-care crisis to be fixed, for RATs to be delivered, for the vaccine rollout to be done properly and for GPs to have certainty of supply? Why is the Prime Minister doing media stunts instead of his actual job?

What else have they been spending time on? Defending their rorts. We heard in question time today about the real-world consequences. When the Safer Communities Fund was rorted, it meant that important projects missed out; we spoke about that in question time today.

What else have they been doing? We had the Deputy Prime Minister offering his resignation over a text message criticising the Prime Minister. This is the amount of chaos this government is in. And it is an absolute disgrace, because while they are doing these things, while they are being self-indulgent and engaging in these political games, in this one-upmanship, in this backgrounding, in this leaking, in this texting, they are not standing up for the people of Australia. They are doing nothing to deliver a better future.

What else have they been doing? In my electorate they've been managing to make stuff up about an Aussie manufacturer who then had to take to the media to correct an incorrect claim this Prime Minister had made about their business on national television. Australian manufacturers deserve a government that will stand up for them, not attack them and make stuff up about them. That's what they deserve, and they will not get it, unfortunately, under this Prime Minister and this government.

I mentioned my portfolio. I want to mention two things. Firstly, on the environment, the government should have been doing its job and delivering a koala recovery plan. They have not done it; it's six years late. Secondly, on water, the minister managed to disregard a requirement of the Water Act that the second Review of the Water for the Environment Special Account be provided to him by the end of September and that he table it within 15 sitting days afterwards. It has been much more than that, and it has not happened.

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