House debates

Thursday, 12 February 2026

Questions without Notice

Albanese Government

3:21 pm

Photo of Anthony AlbaneseAnthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Whitlam for her question and for the fantastic contribution she is making to represent the people of the south part of the Illawarra and the Southern Highlands. As a Labor government, when we come to Canberra here, our focus is on delivering for the communities that we represent and delivering for the national interest in line with Australian values, turning the promises that we took to the Australian people that saw us elected in May 2022 and then re-elected with a bigger majority in May 2025 into the progress that people want to see.

We know that there's always more to do, more we can achieve together. Australians can be sure that that will always be our focus. I lead a government that is orderly, that is cohesive, that has proper cabinet processes, that works as a unit together, that makes decisions after getting proper information and makes sure that it gets implemented. That is what our focus is every time we come here to Canberra. But those opposite have shown that their focus is on each other and on themselves.

We had a declaration—or not quite a declaration. I watched last night. It was pretty extraordinary. Went out there—a resignation and then no declaration of why he was resigning and certainly no policy alternatives being put forward. That, of course, was on, in terms of timing, the day that President Herzog was visiting this parliament. Now, that is consistent with the sort of disruption that we've seen, and the timing and the priorities don't seem to matter to those opposite. On the national day of mourning for victims of the antisemitic Bondi terrorist attack, they announced that the coalition was splitting for the second time. On the day of the funeral of the well respected—across this parliament—member for Higgins, the members for Hume and Canning were publicly plotting against their leader at a house in Melbourne.

The member for Hume, of course, chose to be a part of all of this. And today, on the day of the Closing the gap report, we have the call for a spill and a range of resignations from the front bench. And tomorrow—on the morning on which members of the Stolen Generation will attend the breakfast at 8 o'clock—at 9 o'clock those opposite will be making calls before then and filing into their party room in order to either depose or reaffirm who the leader of the Labor Party is.

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