Julian Hill (Bruce, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Citizenship, Customs and Multicultural Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I was on a roll, indeed. The shadow defence minister has had nothing to say. All he's got is an idea that we should spend more on something—he doesn't know what, but that sounds good. He hasn't asked any questions over the last few weeks, despite seriously big defence policy announcements. His main achievements this term are (1) losing, (2) undermining, and (3) quitting.

But then there's his record as energy minister. He was investigated by the Australian Federal Police for presenting doctored documents to the media. Eventually he had to apologise for that. And don't forget the readers: you know, those left-wing communists who read the Australian Financial Review. In 2020, the readers poll voted the member for Hume as energy minister the worst performing minister in the Morrison government. That's almost an achievement in its own right to be the worst performing minister in the Morrison government! I mean, surely that deserves a promotion to become the opposition leader.

They weren't wrong. He was indeed, objectively—his own record says it—the worst energy minister in Australia's history. He went to the 2019 election promising that wholesale energy prices would fall per megawatt hour to $70. That was his promise. What he actually delivered, after his abject failure, was $286 per megawatt hour. But then, not content with that, before the 2022 election he actually changed the law, changed the regulations, to cover up the power price rises that were already baked in and coming down the pipe that our government inherited after we won the election and then found out the true state of the mess that he left behind. There were serious questions over his conflicts of interest in his first stint as minister, around 2016, with 'grass gate'.

Really it is a profound lesson in rock bottoms. Just when you think it can't get any worse, it can. Australians deserve better. But the problem is they just have not got there yet. I almost feel sorry for the National Party being bound to this mob, the Liberal Party. The problem is not the leader; it's the party. It's not the sales rep; the product that they're selling is rotten to the core. Changing the label on the bottle doesn't disguise the fact that the wine is sour. Their best before date is probably back somewhere in the 1950s. Their best hope, when they mutter to each other is, 'Maybe we'll end up in some kind of a three way between the Liberals and the Nationals and One Nation.' Nope. It's not going to work. One Nation will fill the hole you are leaving. Senator Hanson lives rent free in their heads now, and that is the worst aspect.

I'll finish on this point. The worst aspect of their abject failure—because of the collapse of the coalition and their literal hatred of each other—is the normalisation: the moving of the Overton window as to what's acceptable in this country. Toxic authoritarian, extremist politics that One Nation represents is allowed to kind of infiltrate and be normalised. It's not normal. It's not Australian. When Australians turn on their TV and see the chaos, hate, division and at times now the violence in parts of the Americas and Europe, they don't want that here. That's what One Nation and this extremist kind of politics represents: breaking down our social cohesion.

I'm incredibly optimistic. The member for Gellibrand gave a fabulous speech on Tuesday night in the adjournment debate, pointing out the disjuncture between the increasingly extreme rhetoric in One Nation, half of that mob opposite—whatever they call themselves—and the experience of most decent Australians in the suburbs, regional cities and across the country. The data still shows up that when there's a natural disaster, it's the hard hats, the akubras and the turbans that turn up together. Overwhelmingly migrants to this country are included. Yes, I can say the migrant word and not scream and shout and twitch. We're a nation of migrants. They do participate. They do start businesses. They do work. They do belong. They do feel included. I love our country. I love modern Australia and I love its reality. Unfortunately, where those people over there are going seems increasingly like they hate Australia—the country that we are.

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