Harry Jenkins (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have received a letter from the Leader of the Opposition proposing that a definite matter of public importance be submitted to the House for discussion, namely:

The Prime Minister's failure to govern Australia competently.

I call upon those members who approve of the proposed discussion to rise in their places.

More than the number of members required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Tony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Today, on the first anniversary of the Prime Minister's ascension to the highest elected job in this country, she has refused to defend her own government's record. Mr Speaker, we tried, as you know, a few moments ago to get the Prime Minister on her feet in this chamber to defend the fact that in the 12 months that she has held the top job of this country nothing of substance has been achieved. You would think that today would be a day of some significance to this Prime Minister because it is not often that a deputy assassinates a leader. You would think that, having done the unprecedented and assassinated a first-term, elected Prime Minister, she would at least think it was important to defend the action that she had taken. You would think that she would at least believe it necessary to give this parliament and, through this parliament, the Australian people an account of her stewardship. But, no, this Prime Minister is so contemptuous of the ordinary decencies of public life, so contemptuous of the Australian people who are represented in this parliament that yet again she has scurried from the chamber rather than face up to the ordinary norms of democratic accountability. Now, having run away from a suspension of standing and sessional orders and having run away from a censure, she is equally running away from a matter of public importance debate.

What do we have to do to get this Prime Minister into this House to give a proper account of herself? Truly, what do members of parliament have to do in this chamber to get this Prime Minister to listen? I am doing my best. I think the Australian public are watching this chamber and watching this Prime Minister and they are marking the complete contempt that she has for the ordinary standards of democratic accountability. John Howard would never have run away from this parliament. Paul Keating would never have run away from this parliament. Bob Hawke would never have run away from this parliament. I have sat in this parliament with prime ministers who were far from perfect, and they did not necessarily like criticism, but they understood that a certain amount of criticism came with the territory, they understood that a certain amount of criticism came with the job and they never shrank from it. They never shrank from hearing it, unlike this Prime Minister.

This is the first birthday of the Prime Minister's premiership and I have to say that it is a very unhappy birthday. What she has demonstrated over the last 12 months is that she is a lesser leader—a lesser Prime Minister—than the man she replaced. It is not that the person she replaced was that good. He was far from good. He was by no standards one of Australia's great prime ministers. But I tell you what, Mr Deputy Speaker: he did believe in a few things and he would not run away from this parliament. He would never have run away from this parliament the way his successor has today.

Twelve months ago, as justification for the unprecedented step of assassinating an elected Prime Minister, the current Prime Minister said that the government had lost its way. She nominated three subjects on which the government had lost its way. She said that it had lost its way on border protection, she said that it had lost its way on the mining tax and she said that it had lost its way on climate change. On every single one of those subjects that the Prime Minister nominated as justifying the political assassination of her predecessor, things have gone from bad to worse. The mining tax, which she told us was settled during the election campaign, is far from settled. The reason why it is far from settled is that this Prime Minister did not take the whole of the mining industry into her confidence. She sat down and did a deal with three big multinationals. I have got nothing against BHP, Rio and Xstrata. They are all good companies. They employ tens, if not hundreds, of thousands of Australians directly or indirectly and they are vital to our nation's prosperity. But they are not the whole of the mining industry. What this Prime Minister should have done, if she wanted to be a Prime Minister for all Australians—as every Prime Minister must surely aspire to—is to sit down with the smaller miners too, particularly the miners that are uniquely, distinctively and wholly Australian. But, no, that was not good enough for this Prime Minister.

Then we have border protection. This is a Prime Minister who has had 89 boats and almost 5,000 illegal arrivals since she said that her predecessor had mucked it up. Since she said that her predecessor did not know what he was doing and had lost his way, we have had 89 boats and 5,000 arrivals. I tell you what: the people smugglers have not lost their way, have they? The government has lost its way but not the people smugglers under this Prime Minister. First of all, we had the East Timor solution, which sank somewhere in the Timor Sea. We had the Manus Island solution. The only problem with that was that she had not actually bothered to tell the PNG government she was about to make the announcement. Then we had the Malaysian people swap. It is very interesting, isn't it—the justification that the Prime Minister has given for the Malaysian people swap in this parliament? She boasts that the Malaysian people swap is better than Nauru because, she says, the Malaysian people swap is tougher than Nauru. She wants people to be caned—she really does. She wants people to be caned.

But what about the awesome silence of members opposite about this Prime Minister, of members behind this Prime Minister? The Labor Party is the parliamentary party which said for years that the former Prime Minister and the former government were being deeply inhumane for sending boat people to Nauru. 'Costly', 'unsustainable' and wrong in principle I think is what the current Prime Minister said about it. She said that there was no way any boat people would ever be sent to a country that had not signed the UN convention on refugees—yet another lie. It is not just a lie about sending people to countries that had not signed the UN convention but it was a lie when she said she thought that there was something inhumane about Nauru. Nothing could be more inhumane than sending people who have arrived on our shores looking for comfort and succour to a country where they might be exposed to that kind of a legal system. And shame on members opposite for being so silent and having such double standards on this issue. How can members of the Labor Left look at themselves in the mirror anymore? How can they, when they are now giving grudging support to a Prime Minister who wants to treat boat people with far less humanity than ever took place under the former government?

Then of course we get to climate change. Perhaps enough has already been made today of the fact that this Prime Minister has been utterly deceptive on this subject. Let me make this point before I move on to other topics. This issue is, if anything, even more contentious now than it was when the Prime Minister politically assassinated her predecessor. If there is one thing that this Prime Minister has achieved, it is not quite a deep and lasting consensus the way she meant but that she has united this country as rarely before in opposition to the government's climate change policies. That is what she has done.

There is just a monumental incompetence that afflicts this government—whether it be the 260 childcare centres that were stopped after just 38; whether it be the promised 2,650 trade training centres, of which fewer than 100 have been built; whether it be the 38 GP superclinics, of which fewer than a dozen are operating and none of which are operating anything like the 24 hours that would be necessary for them to take the pressure off emergency departments; whether it be the pink batts that famously or notoriously, as the case may be, were put into people's roofs only to catch fire and then have to be taken out; or whether it be the school halls that this government and this Prime Minister have built at a cost which is, frankly, a crime against the taxpayers of this country.

There is no end to the incompetence and the deception of this government and this Prime Minister. There is the baby bonus that was never going to be means tested but has been means tested. There was the private health insurance rebate that was never going to be means tested but has been means tested or at least is proposed to be means tested. There was the childcare benefit that was never going to be means tested but is means tested. There is the surplus. Oh my God, this mythical surplus! Please introduce us to this surplus! What this government has actually done is give us, on its own record and on its own forecasts, not a surplus but $150 billion worth of accumulated deficit in just five years. Members opposite now have the cheek and hide to start talking about a surplus that has not yet been achieved and, on Labor's record, never will be achieved.

Today of course we have the National Broadband Network. Talk about throwing good money after bad. There is $12 billion being handed over not to improve services but to close services down. Decent and competent governments would weep. Every predecessor of this Prime Minister would weep at the record of this government. We have a Prime Minister who does not trust her colleagues. She is now muzzling them from speaking to the media. We have a Prime Minister who does not trust the people. The last thing this Prime Minister would ever be is honest with the Australian people about what she intends. She was not honest with them before the last election about the carbon tax. She wants to sneak the carbon tax through a parliament that has no mandate for it because she does not want it to be an issue at the next election. Try that one—the carbon tax not being an issue at the next election! She does not even trust this parliament, which is why she will not come in and give an account of herself to this parliament.

This Prime Minister survives for one reason and for one reason only: not because she is now the preferred leader of the Labor Party but only because the Independents have indicated that that is the only way this government survives. Perhaps when the Minister for Defence Materiel, at the table, stands up to talk, he might let us know what it is like to be a member of a political party whose leader spends far more time talking to Independent members of parliament, whose leader spends far more time in the electorates of Independent members of parliament and whose leader spends far more time listening to the policy ideas of Independent members of parliament than she does listening to, talking to and visiting with the members of her own party. She has abandoned the members of her own party in favour of the Independents because they are the only people who are keeping this weak and hopeless Prime Minister in office.

It is 12 months on from the bloodiest political assassination in Australia's history. Why did she do it? What has it all been for? It has not been for a great cause. It has not been for a policy achievement. We know what it has been for—nothing but this Prime Minister's ego and ambition. That is all. She was not ambitious for the higher things; she was just ambitious for a higher job. It is 12 months on, but the Australian people still do not have a clue what this Prime Minister really stands for.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Materiel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That is 15 minutes we will never get back. For 15 minutes I waited for something positive; for 15 minutes I waited for one positive idea—I did not hear it. All we got was negativity; all we got was bile and invective. As the Prime Minister said in question time today, it was just 'a mouth full of insults and no ideas.' The people watching in the gallery must be thinking, 'Gee, I wish I could have that 15 minutes back.' It was that bad they must wish they had been watching the Senate for the last 15 minutes. People listening to the broadcast must be thinking, 'I want that 15 minutes back—I could have washed my hair; I could have walked the dog,' because all they got was bile and bluster. They got no ideas, no policy, no vision, just toxic negativity, just Dr No—the man who says no to everything—

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting—

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Materiel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The man who says no to almost anything. He could not find the positive side to a battery. It is no wonder, because every time he opens his mouth he gets it wrong.

This is an MPI about competence—from a man who could not even competently pull off a political stunt this week. Talk about competence! This is the man who put Barnaby Joyce in charge of finance. That is like putting Homer Simpson in charge of the nuclear power plant. Remember that this is the opposition leader who, on his website, told people to donate to the Liberal Party, not to the people of Queensland, for the flood recovery. This is the Leader of the Opposition who rips his policies off the One Nation website. This is the Leader of the Opposition who ripped $1 billion out of the health system. This is the Leader of the Opposition who said that Australia's circumstances were 'not dire' during the global financial crisis. This is the same man who slept through the divisions to decide whether we were going to stimulate the economy to stop Australia going into recession—it was not just one division; there were five divisions, so it must have been a deep sleep. This is the Leader of the Opposition who, as reported in the Sydney Morning Herald of Tuesday, 21 December 2010, opposes the NBN because he sees it as 'essentially a video entertainment system'. On all the big calls, it is this Leader of the Opposition who has got it wrong—and he has the gall to come in here with an MPI about competence.

Being Prime Minister of Australia requires more than just the ability to say no. Australia has been made great by people who had the courage to say yes, not those who are too incompetent to do anything other than say no. When you look at the history of Australia, whether it is over the last 12 months or over the last 100 years, it is the Australian Labor Party that has made the big reforms that have made this country what it is. Whether it is the establishment of the old-age pension or workers compensation, whether it is building the foundations of the ANZUS alliance or APEC, whether it is Medicare or native title, whether it is the Racial Discrimination Act or the Sex Discrimination Act or whether it is the big economic reforms responsible for two decades of uninterrupted economic growth such as floating the dollar, competition policy, tariff reform or compulsory superannuation, it is the Labor Party that has done it—more often than not opposed by the Liberal Party. And that is still the case today.

On the last 12 months, it is this Prime Minister who has structurally separated Telstra—something the Liberal Party never had the courage to do; it is this Prime Minister who has negotiated the historic health agreement with the states—something the Liberal Party were incapable of doing; it is this Prime Minister who is helping the people of Queensland to rebuild after the floods—something the Liberal Party are trying to stop us from doing; it is this Prime Minister who has got the big mining companies to agree to pay more tax; it is this Prime Minister who is putting the budget on track for surplus in 2012-13; and it is this Prime Minister who is putting a price on carbon. On every single one of these, the Leader of the Opposition just says no.

He talks in this MPI about competence. The most important job of the Australian government is to keep the economy strong, to keep Australians working. Let us have a look at the Australian government's record. Unemployment today in Australia is 4.9 per cent. Compare that with the United States, where unemployment is 9.1 per cent. In the last three years we created 700,000 jobs. Over the same period in the United States they lost 6.6 million jobs. If the most important job of the Australian government is to keep the economy strong and to keep Australians working, then by any measure this government has been extremely successful. Compare that with the opposition, who opposed the stimulus and who, if we had followed their advice, would have plunged the Australian economy into recession and forced 200,000 Australians onto the dole queue.

But that is not the only thing the opposition have opposed. We are increasing the superannuation of Australian workers, and they oppose it. We are building the National Broadband Network; they want to rip it up. We have increased hospital funding by 50 per cent. When they were in government, they ripped $1 billion out of the hospital system. We are rolling out the biggest funding increase ever for mental health; they would increase funding for mental health by cutting other health services.

We have introduced the biggest pension increase in 100 years—an extra $128 a fortnight for singles and an extra $116 for couples. In 11 years they did nothing to deliver a permanent increase in the pension. We have introduced Australia's first national Paid Parental Leave scheme. It started in January and, in the first five months, 65,000 families have benefited. The Liberal Party are now talking about scrapping their own paid parental leave scheme to pay for their own climate change plan. Let us take education. We have doubled the funding for schools. They might be interested in this one: we built 3,000 libraries in schools; the Liberal Party built 3,000 flagpoles. We are building trade training centres for every high school to train students to become apprentices; the Liberal Party have promised to scrap them.

The difference between the government and the Liberal Party is no clearer than when it comes to climate change. The government is determined to take on this big reform and the Liberal Party, as on most big reforms that have come before, have no ideas, just an increasingly desperate, increasingly unbelievable scare campaign. Have a look at the scare campaign that we have seen over the last few months. In April, the Leader of the Opposition went to Whyalla and said that a carbon tax would wipe Whyalla off the map. It got better. In May, he went to Geelong and said that the carbon tax would be the final nail in the coffin of the motor industry in Australia. He said that it would spell the end for Australia as a First World economy. In the same month, he went to Weet-Bix and said it would kill breakfast. Three weeks ago, he said that it would kill the manufacturing industry in this country. Two weeks ago, he said it would be the death of the coal industry. Last week, he said that the steel industry would disappear. All of it, of course, is just nonsense.

Let us have a look at some of the claims, some of the scare campaign, and a look at some of the facts. First, let us have a look at the claim that it would cause the death of the coal industry. Treasury have modelled the impact of the CPRS on the coal industry and they found that coal industry output would continue to grow by 66 per cent over the next 40 years—so much for the death of the coal industry! Interestingly, the planned investment by the resources sector over the course of the next few years sheds a few more interesting facts on this matter. It shows that the industry does not believe this nonsense either, because there is now $430 billion in resource investment either underway or on the drawing board as at April—up from around $380 billion in October last year. Interestingly, $70 billion of that work is in coal related projects.

Let us have a look at one of the other ridiculous claims. Two weeks ago, in another MPI from the Leader of the Opposition, he came in here and predicted hundreds of thousands of jobs around the country would be lost and the end of Australia as a First World economy. That is interesting again, because Treasury has done some modelling—

Government members interjecting—

He did say it—believe it or not. The Hansardrecords it. That modelling shows that a carbon tax of $20 a tonne would not have any impact on the number of jobs created. According to the modelling, in the next nine years there will be 1.6 million more jobs created in Australia, with or without the tax. This is just how ridiculous it gets, because it was not just the coal industry and it was not just the steel industry and it was not just jobs he was talking about. Two weeks ago, he went to Visy in Brisbane, where he said that the carbon tax would cause the cost of beer cartons to go up. This is a serious matter! Unfortunately, on this matter he is right; it would cause the price of beer cartons to go up—

Government members interjecting—

I will give you the information. The price will go up by $0.0003, or three one-hundredths of a cent.

Chris Bowen (McMahon, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Immigration and Citizenship) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It's a scandal.

Jason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Defence Materiel) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It is a scandal. I have done the calculations because I like my beer. Based on the former CPRS, you would have to buy 3,000 beer cartons before it would cost you an extra dollar—a serious scare campaign! I think the people of Australia deserve better than that. I think they deserve better than 15 minutes of bile. They got 25 minutes of bile from the Leader of the Opposition today. They deserve better than the 18 months of incompetence that we have seen from this Leader of the Opposition and they certainly deserve better than another dodgy Liberal scare campaign.

When it comes to the Liberal Party, we know they have form when it comes to dodgy scare campaigns. In the 1950s, it was reds under the bed. In the 1970s, it was China. The Liberal Party said that Whitlam's engagement with China was 'a daemonic game of mahjong'. In the 1980s, the great scare campaign was Medicare. This is what they said at the time about Medicare: 'A total and complete failure; a financial monster; a human nightmare.' That is what the Liberal Party said about Medicare in the 1980s. In the 1990s, it was native title. They said that you would lose your backyard. In the 1990s, it was compulsory superannuation as well. They said that the introduction of compulsory superannuation would destroy the economy and cost hundreds of thousands of jobs. On all of these counts, whether it was reds under the bed, China, Medicare, native title or compulsory superannuation, they were wrong, and it is all not so scary anymore. Medicare is now the cornerstone of our health system. Native title did not take anyone's backyard. Superannuation did not destroy jobs; it actually created them. Instead of the 100,000 jobs that the Liberal Party feared would be lost, the superannuation industry created 60,000 jobs. It was one of the most important economic reforms of the 20th century. The same arguments are being made by the Liberal Party now that were made then—that it would destroy the economy, that it would kill jobs. They were wrong then and they are wrong now. On all of the big calls, the Liberal Party and the Leader of the Opposition have got it wrong—yet they have the absolute gall to come into this House and raise a discussion about competency.

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Every benchmark of a bad government was set by the Rudd government. Members will recall GroceryWatch and Fuelwatch and pink batts—the list goes on. Now every one of those bad government benchmarks has been exceeded by the Gillard government in 12 months. People will recall that the current Prime Minister was part of the so-called gang of four in the Rudd government—she was one of Prime Minister Rudd's trusted lieutenants and she was the Deputy Prime Minister. So every failing of the Rudd government can be laid at the door of this Prime Minister. And, now, she has her own litany of failures and failings that make this one of the most incompetent governments in the history of Australia.

The Prime Minister has taken incompetence to a new low. After 12 months the Australian people are less confident, they are more concerned and they are understandably confused about the direction Australia is heading under this government. Recently a survey was undertaken by JWS Research asking Australian people to nominate the best governments in the last 30 years and 96 per cent of the people surveyed named any government but the Gillard government. That means that four per cent of those surveyed gave the Gillard government a tick—even fewer people than think Elvis Presley is still alive.

Twelve months ago, on fundamental injustice day, Deputy Prime Minister Gillard betrayed her leader—the man that she said she would support, the leader to whom she pledged loyalty. Twelve months on from fundamental injustice day, you know how badly this government is travelling when the Labor Party starts leaking its own research against its leader. This is what happened to Prime Minister Rudd—they started leaking against him, to undermine his standing. It is happening again with Prime Minister Gillard. Today, on the front page of the Sydney Morning Herald, an article by Peter Hartcher states:

After a year as Prime Minister, Julia Gillard has failed to establish any sort of positive relationship with the Australian people, according to the Labor Party's own research.

Gillard is seen as cold and untrustworthy, still haunted by the way she took the job by deposing the man to whom she had endlessly pledged loyalty, Kevin Rudd.

By overthrowing Rudd, she created an emotional starting point for public assessment. This was compounded by her broken promise—'there will be no carbon tax under the government I lead'—to entrench a dominant image of dishonesty.

The Prime Minister said that she had to depose Kevin Rudd because the government had lost its way—the government of which she was Deputy Prime Minister; the government of which she was part of the gang of four. But she said it had lost its way, that it had gone off track. With her characteristic arrogance, she said she had to take control. She named three issues—first, the mining tax. You might recall that when the gang of four first announced the resource super profits tax, so little did the then Deputy Prime Minister understand mining companies that she claimed that domestic mining companies paid an effective company tax rate of 17 per cent and overseas companies paid 13 per cent. She said that was not a fair share, and that was why they were moving to introduce the resource super profits tax. She said the reason for the super profits tax was that mining companies were paying 13 per cent and 15 per cent tax, and then she said:

These are the cold, hard facts—the truth.

That was a lie. That was not true. This Prime Minister has form. In fact, Australian Taxation Office statistics show that mining companies pay effectively 30 per cent and 41 per cent when royalties are included, and overseas multinationals pay something like 42 per cent or 43 per cent. So the reason she gave for the mining tax was in fact a lie. Then she did a deal with three of the 3,000 mining companies. But, having done the deal, she then tried to renege on it and say that they would not get the royalties set off against the mining tax. She tried to renege on a deal she did with the people in order to take over from Prime Minister Rudd. Then there is sovereign risk—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Ms Julie Bishop (Curtin, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Members are interjecting asking about the mining tax. On page 13 of today's Australian Financial Review we see 'Big miner prefers Africa to Australia'. The article says that the government's mining tax:

… has made Australia a more unpredictable investment destination for coal producers than African countries like Mozambique …

The head of Brazilian miner Vale said:

Australia is becoming harder because you cannot predict what will happen.

In Africa I know what the challenges are …

The article goes on:

He said an unpredictable investment environment in Australia was the 'main risk' …

He cited the minerals resource rent tax and the carbon tax. Who would have thought that sovereign risk and Australia could be said in the same sentence? Under this government sovereign risk is mentioned all the time.

The second issue that the Prime Minister said she had to fix was asylum seekers. The disastrous policy embraced by the Rudd government which has seen the people smugglers back in business was in fact designed by this Prime Minister when she was the opposition spokesperson on border protection and immigration. The Rudd government embraced her policy and we have seen an explosion in the people-smuggling trade. She said she was going to fix this explosion in the people-smuggling trade by having a detention centre in East Timor. Problem: she had not told the East Timorese government about it. Then, when the controversy broke out, she tried to say that she did not mean East Timor after all. She did mean East Timor! No wonder Laurie Oakes called her 'silly and slippery and slimy and shifty'. He summed her up all right.

Do you recall that we could not have the detention centre—paid for by the Australian taxpayers—reopened because Nauru was not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees? This Prime Minister takes the Australian people for mugs. What does she announce? An asylum seeker swap with Malaysia, which is not a signatory to the UN convention on refugees. What a great deal—a five-to-one asylum seeker swap—from the so-called great negotiator. What a deal for Australia! The Malaysian deal, like the East Timor deal, reminds me of Monty Python's parrot—'not dead; just resting'. This Prime Minister could not negotiate a deal with countries in our region because she has shown such arrogance towards them.

The third issue was climate change. Her promise to the Australian people was that a lasting community consensus would be obtained. What did she do? She trashed that immediately. She promised a citizens assembly, and, because it was such a ridiculous idea and she was so embarrassed by it, she ran away from it and made out that she had not announced it at all. In her election policy—and this will ring in the ears of the Australian people for decades to come; this statement has defined this Prime Minister—she said, 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' That has made her one of the most untrustworthy people in Australian public life. She has no mandate to introduce a carbon tax. She has shown no respect for the Australian people in relation to it.

Now we have another debacle in the live cattle trade. By panicking, overreacting and putting in place a total ban, she has managed to offend Indonesia, one of our closest neighbours; she has managed to put the livelihoods of cattle families in the north of Australia at risk; and she has managed to damage one of Australia's most significant exports.

What about the NBN? It is a $50 billion government monopoly that will not give taxpayers value for money. Consumers will not get cheaper broadband and we will not get the benefits of competition between technologies or competition between tele­communications companies.

What about her signature policy, Building the Education Revolution? There have been billions of dollars wasted—sheer incompetence—building canteens that you cannot even fit a pie warmer into.

Then there is the state of the budget. The Labor Party inherited zero government debt. The Rudd government ran it up. The Gillard government have taken government debt to over $100 billion. As for the surplus, they have never delivered a surplus and they will not deliver a surplus. Over four budgets, the cumulative deficit is $150 billion.

This government is defined by panic, indecision, incompetence and untrust­worthiness. No wonder the Prime Minister has imposed a gag order on the ministers, when ministers say things like:

"Kevin's polling wasn't as bad as Julia's is right now and I think a lot of Australians still love him. They probably think he was hard done by. Let's face it, we could do worse and we are."

(Time expired)

Amanda Rishworth (Kingston, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I start, I must give a big shout out to the students of Glenmore Park Public School, as their local member has asked me to. It is a pity they had to witness that performance. But we know why this matter of public importance is up today: it is to hide the incompetence of the opposition. They are trying to put up whatever smoke and mirrors they can to hide their incompetence, because not only did the Leader of the Opposition show this week that he was not fit for public office—he showed clearly that he was not fit for public office when we had a Prime Minister visiting from another country—but also he showed that he is incompetent at conducting a good stunt.

This week we saw the Leader of the Opposition ready to go out to try and conduct a stunt. He thought: 'What could we do now? What would be a good stunt? We'll leak it to the papers that we'll have a plebiscite—a non-binding plebiscite—on the carbon tax. Yeah, we'll leak that to the papers.' Then what happened? The Leader of the Opposition probably should have thought about this. He was asked on radio whether or not he would abide by the result of a plebiscite, and he could not say yes. He could not say that he would listen to the people on his own proposed plebiscite. So, while it was probably in theory a good stunt, it was very, very poorly executed.

That is unfortunately what we have seen from the Leader of the Opposition. Interestingly enough, we have not heard any more about the national plebiscite in the days since it became clear that it was a stunt, but he is trying a number of other stunts, trying what he can—coming in here and being incredibly negative and incredibly disorderly. From what we saw before, he is really just trying to have a joke, trying to deliver a few one-liners—that is all the Leader of the Opposition is indeed capable of—on a day when we have seen a momentous agreement to facilitate the rollout of the National Broadband Network.

When we talk about incompetence, we only have to cast our minds back to the previous Howard government. They tried to fix broadband, but they did not try very well. They had 18—I think it actually got up to 20 but on the record I will say 18—failed broadband plans. In my electorate, where many people are on pair gains and many people cannot access broadband and are on dial-up, people were waiting for the previous government to do something. The first plan came—failure. The second plan came—failure. The third plan came—failure. Then there was the OPEL contract which the previous government put in. They said, 'This will cover 98 per cent of Australia.' After a bit of work, they said, 'Oh, whoops; it will only cover 72 per cent of Australia.'

There were these constant failed broadband plans. And they have the cheek—I think that is the right word—to come into this place and criticise our National Broadband Network. I have got news for the Leader of the Opposition: people in Australia are pleased with our progress on the National Broadband Network. They welcome the National Broadband Network. For the first time, they are seeing a real solution. People in my seat of Kingston could have told the previous government that the structural separation of Telstra would be very important to facilitate competition. They knew it. Unfortunately, the previous government did not know it. This government and this Prime Minister have forged ahead and are delivering the National Broadband Network. This government is delivering for Australians, no matter where they live, a good fast broadband service because good broadband is important for our economy. I know that the Leader of the Opposition does not think that. I know he thinks that the National Broadband Network will be just a national entertainment system. He is clearly not listening to small businesses in my electorate. Small businesses and the business associations in my electorate see the lack of broadband as the No. 1 impediment to expanding their businesses. If the Leader of the Opposition really wanted to be a leader for small business, not just for his Liberal Party mates who end up on the front page of the newspaper, he would step out of the way of our National Broadband Network.

But we know that with this Leader of the Opposition it is always no and it is always hysteria. We have seen this when it comes to putting a price on carbon. We have seen the hysteria as he runs around to different factories and other places claiming gloom and doom will come from the carbon tax. Quite frankly, I have noticed that when the Leader of the Opposition goes to different places he never mentions his own policy, and I have wondered why. He says that the sky is going to fall in with the carbon tax, but he does not mention his policy. I think the reason he does not mention his policy is that no-one else supports it. There is no economist around who has come out and said: 'Yes, let's tax the Australian people more and subsidise big polluters. That's the answer.' No economist is saying that, and people who believe in a market mechanism to price carbon, like the member for Wentworth, are not saying that. Unfortunately, the Leader of the Opposition has said: 'No, we're not going to let the market decide. We're not going to believe in market principles. What we're going to do is pick some winners and plant some more trees and that will fix climate change.' Unfortunately for the Leader of the Opposition, no-one believes him when he says that. Quite famously, he has stated before that he is a weathervane on this issue. In fact, I am sure that when he goes off to one of the conferences he is going to attend with Lord Monckton he will ask Lord Monckton for endorsement of his policy. But I do not even think that Lord Monckton will endorse his policy of direct action, because it is not a credible policy at all.

We also know that when it comes to a strong economy the Leader of the Opposition has a very big credibility gap, because our government has put the fundamentals in place to manage the mining boom and spread its benefits to the whole country. We know that the previous government, incompetently, did not manage the first mining boom; in fact, they wasted and squandered the benefits of that mining boom. An extra $100 billion of revenue was squandered by the previous government. But we in this government are determined to make sure that we spread the benefits and use this opportunity to invest in our future and ensure that this country is on the right track. That is what the Australian people are looking for. They are looking for a Prime Minister, and a government, who acts in the national interest, and that is the Prime Minister we have. When we look at the opposition leader all we see is a leader who is obsessed with his personal ambition, with himself and with his political stunts.

We saw that quite clearly in his budget-in-reply speech. When the Treasurer was outlining where we might go in the future in this new Asian century, the Leader of the Opposition provided no credible alternative economic plan. Instead, we got quite a few jokes, quite a few one-liners and the playing up of slogans to the gallery. We got no credible economic plan. Instead, we got: 'I'll refer to our costings from the election. That's what we're falling back on.' The problem with the costings that he was referring to from the last election is that there was an $11 billion black hole. While the Leader of the Opposition was running around suggesting that perhaps he was a more credible economic manager, what we saw was a big $11 billion black hole. I am not sure what you think, Mr Deputy Speaker, but I think an $11 billion black hole is an incredible position to have. The Leader of the Opposition should have used his budget-in-reply speech to correct the record—to actually do his costings and come up with an alternative plan. He did not do it; there was nothing in it.

We also saw that type of performance when it came to dealing with the Queensland floods. This government was getting on with rebuilding Queensland and working with the Queensland government, but from the Leader of the Opposition we just saw opposition, carping, three-word slogans and no real plan. He put a bit in: he thought he would use some One Nation emails and cut some of the aid budget and a few other things. But he had no credible economic plan for the future. While this government gets on with the job, the Leader of the Opposition can run around and do all the stunts he wants— (Time expired)

Peter Slipper (Fisher, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Before I call the Leader of the Nationals, I would encourage all members to read the provisions of standing order 89 regarding offensive words. The standing order says:

A Member must not use offensive words against:

(a) either House of the Parliament or a Member of the Parliament—

and it then goes on to talk about the judiciary. House of Representatives Practice says on page 501:

An accusation that a Member has lied or deliberately misled is clearly an imputation of an improper motive.

I believe that in the debate that is underway there has been some use of inappropriate words and I would counsel all members to ensure that there is not a repetition.

Warren Truss (Wide Bay, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The last 12 months have been a shameful chapter in the governance of this country's affairs. It has been a period punctuated by stuff-ups, complete incomp­etence and contempt for the Aust­ralian people. Tomorrow's first anniversary of the Prime Minister's reign is bathed in the blood of her predecessor, a stain that lingers with the Labor Party as well as the consciousness of all Australians. The litany of abuses since the Prime Minister seized power, most profoundly abuses against the trust of Australian voters, mark this occasion and are forever etched in the psyche of Australians.

It is regional Australia that has been dudded the most. Labor does not care about people who live outside the capital cities. The Prime Minister is a city girl and she has made little effort to acquaint herself with the hopes and aspirations of regional Australians—so much so that at the last election we had the 'new paradigm' touted by the Independents that handed government to Labor. But it has failed abysmally. Labor has not even honoured the promises that they made to the Independents—so much so that the Independent member for Kennedy has declared publicly that the Independents have failed to deliver anything for regional Australians. And he is absolutely right: they, like all people in regional Australia, have been dudded. The Gillard government record, sadly, speaks for itself.

The mining tax hangs like a sword over the heads of entire regional communities. The uncertainty and the confusion caused by the government's chopping and changing has already deterred investment and circ­umvented sound business decision making. Jobs in regional areas will go. Our international competitiveness will be diminished. It is a kick in the teeth for reg­ional Australia. And the funding announced for the regional projects that are supposed to come from the 2011-12 federal budget is conditional on the revenue from the proposed mining tax. So the deal done with the Independents to provide them with an $800 million regional fund is conditional on passing a tax. That is a lose-lose situation for the regions. If the tax does not pass through the parliament, the regional projects will not proceed. If it does, regional communities will lose jobs and economic prosperity created by mining developments and mineral processing. It is a sell-out.

A further example of the sell-out was the incredible announcement that, of the $800 million to be provided over the forward estimates for regional Australia, $450 million is allocated to the roads around Perth Airport—hardly what I would call regional Australia. Indeed, the Minister for Regional Australia, Regional Development and Local Government confirmed last week that it was the government's intention to spend the majority of the regional fund on this Perth road project, and once more he said that they will be spending more money in the cities. So the Independents are backing a government on the basis of an $800 million commitment for regional projects, most of which is going to be spent in the cities. It is completely dishonest.

When we look at the carbon tax, we are forever reminded of its impact on regional Australia. For example, research by the Australian Farm Institute exposes that an average grain farm in Western Australia will be up to $37,000 a year worse off under a carbon price of $36 a tonne—and that is even if agriculture is excluded from the carbon regime. This research confirms what farmers and their communities have instinctively known: that even the indirect costs will make many farms unviable. Farmers and regional people will have to pay a bigger share of this carbon tax than those who live in the cities, because they have to travel further and their costs will therefore be compounded by this additional imposition.

Farmers drive $155 billion a year in production and $32 billion in annual exports and support 1.6 million jobs. That is a lot to sacrifice on the altar of a carbon tax. And the Prime Minister said she would not have one. 'There'll be no carbon tax under a government I lead. I rule out a carbon tax,' she said. Those words will live in infamy and will haunt this government to its electoral grave.

Labor's NBN is another fiasco and setback for regional Australians—$50 billion spent with no cost-benefit analysis and taxpayers now forced to foot the bill so Telstra can scrap its copper network. The government is boasting today that it is going to pay $12 billion to Optus and Telstra to close down their network. How is that a good investment in infrastructure in this country? Ironically, if there had not been a Labor government elected, most regional Australians would now have access to high-speed broadband through the Opel contract—and, once more, at speeds greater than those Labor is offering. Bear in mind that Labor has specifically excluded people who live in regional areas from its commitment to high-speed broadband. Seven per cent of the population is going to have to depend on wireless or in some cases satellite. This is Labor again developing a two-speed economy: one speed for their mates in the city but, for people who live in regional Australia, a second-class service.

I now want to turn to the live export trade, another example of policy failure by this government. The bungling of the live cattle export issue is simply another example of Labor's incompetence. It ignored the warnings and then was panicked into a decision without any plan for the future. This is ironically a case where the minister originally made the right decision—to ban exports to abattoirs that do not meet appropriate standards. But then the Prime Minister and others came over the top and introduced a total ban, including a ban on world-class abattoirs, abattoirs that exceed world standards. Indeed, I have referred on a number of occasions to the classic example of the 1,937 cattle that were, at that time, being held in an AQIS certified holding yard in Port Hedland. They are all NLIS tagged. They are Australian cattle, owned by an Australian company. They are ready to be transported on an Australian owned and operated livestock carrier with full AMSA accreditation. They are to be delivered to an Australian owned and operated feedlot. There is a full set of quality assurance procedures that are independently audited by an international company. The cattle will then be sent, after 80 to 100 days in the feedlot, to an Australian owned and operated abattoir and processing facility. There are many Australian staff in this facility. It has HACCP and ISO 9001 accreditation. You may be interested to know that the Indonesian version of MasterChef is currently being filmed in that very abattoir. That abattoir is being shown to all the Indonesian people, with MasterChef being filmed in that facility, but it is not good enough for Australian cattle. It is good enough for the television crews but it is not good enough for Australian cattle.

Why has the government banned good practice? Why has it destroyed the incentive to do the right thing? It should be making sure that this trade begins as immediately as it can. There are tagged cattle. There are closed loops that would enable cattle to get moving quite quickly. It is absolutely urgent that the Prime Minister send the Minister for Foreign Affairs, Mr Rudd, to Indonesia to try and patch up some of the diplomatic damage that has been done as a result of the government's bungling of this issue. This has turned into a diplomatic gaffe, and it is standing in the way of this trade re-commencing.

There are thousands of Australian jobs at risk. The Indonesians are not going to simply stand by; they are already searching for other countries to deliver them live animals so that they can provide the food that their people need. The minister's visit to Indonesia was a debacle. He failed to achieve anything worth while. Indeed, the poisonous nature of the current relationship simply needs to be addressed. It is time that the Prime Minister was prepared to admit that the government got it wrong, eat a bit of humble pie and send the foreign minister to Indonesia to try and mend some of the bridges. Let us hope that somehow or other our friendship with Indonesia, which is very important to our country, can be restored.

Then we need to have a comprehensive program of upgrading animal welfare practices in countries like Indonesia. If it matters to Australians that their own cattle are cared for humanely, surely that is important also for Indonesian cattle and the cattle from other countries that are going to take our place in that market. This is another example of policy failure. The cattlemen of Northern Australia are in great distress, and this government has no plan whatsoever to help them through this crisis. This is an example of a government that has failed all Australians and particularly has failed regional Australians. (Time expired)

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The carping that we have heard today is, indeed, what we have heard for the last 12 months from an opposition who know nothing but opposition. I think that is the key to understanding their psyche: they are in opposition. They do not like being in opposition. They have not accepted the result from the Australian people at the last election. They do not like it. They cannot grow up and move on. And they have a leader who can offer little example except in negativity. There is no creativity in the Leader of the Opposition except in the creation of slogans, except in the creation of more negativity and except in the creation of stunts, and even those stunts do not work.

This week there was a classic example of a stunt, starting off with a great deal of fanfare. He could not even bring it into this House at the right time because he did not even know when the parliament was sitting. Of course, he had the flagship of the opposition, the Australian newspaper, beating this stuff up, and he could not even bring it into this House as legislation. Then it got shot down in flames in the other house, and we did not hear any more about the so-called plebiscite in this place. The week started off with the raging headlines about a plebiscite: 'Take the Australian people to a plebiscite so they can make their decision.' What happened to it? It died an undignified death in here—they could not even get it in the place—and in the Senate it got what it deserved; that is, a contemptuous response. That is the sum total of the opposition this week—that and the constant carping that we have heard from this mob for 12 months.

In fact, if you take the time to look at the facts and look at the record of this government over the last 12 months and before, it is a record of substance. It is a constructive, successful and progressive record. What has it achieved? Contrary to what those on the other side would have had—and contrary to their flagship, the Australian newspaper, and other News Ltd paraphernalia—what we have is a strong economy, a sustainable environment and an ongoing fair society. And, with all that, we are delivering our election commitments. As I said, we have been constructive, we have been progressive and we have been successful. Those on the other side are about slogans, negativity and stunts.

If you went out to the streets and asked, 'What are the major policies of the opposition?' the only policies you would ever hear about are no, no, no. There is no body of policy. There is no platform of policy except carping, negativity—no—and stunts, and when they do the stunts they do not work. So what do the opposition stand for? I think the Australian people would tell you, 'They might stand for bringing back Work Choices.' When you ask people out there, 'What is their policy for dealing with climate change?' they do not have a clue, except that some, who might have been doing some reading—you would not want to read the Australian newspaper to find this out because they do not even analyse it—might say, 'I think they want to subsidise polluters with taxpayers' money and let the taxpayer pay for those polluters.' They might say that, but apart from that they know nothing about this opposition except the negativity and the carping. I have had the pleasure of looking through our record over the last few years and what a terrific record it is. We have much to be proud of. First and foremost—and you would never believe it if you listen to those on the other side—this country, along with the rest of the world, went through a financial global crisis and this country came through relatively better—indeed, comparatively better—than just about every other economy. Is that recognised on the other side? No.

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Indeed, as my colleagues say, not only that, it was slept through by the Leader of the Opposition. I might not be the sharpest tool in the shed, and I might not have the most bouffant hair in the parliament, but I have more interest in economics than the Leader of the Opposition. I can tell you that much.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He has a degree in it.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Oh, he has a degree in it.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Have you?

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, no, I do not have a degree in economics. I have three others, thanks very much. I have enough on my plate. The Leader of the Opposition does not like economics and gets so bored by economics that he stays asleep while we are going through the legislation to do something about it. Then he gets his PR merchants opposite to carp away there. I can see them standing up in a minute and doing their contribution. I do not think so.

Let us have a look at our record. First and foremost, we have had strong economic management by acting decisively to keep us out of the recession. They can laugh all they like on the other side. If we had followed their views, we would have been deep in recession. Without the government's decisive action to keep our economy strong, around 200,000 jobs would have been lost.

Some opposite are supposed to be responsible for the financial policies of the opposition with an $11 billion or $12 billion black hole in your figures. When you went to present the figures in front of the media, we had the advisers on the other side saying to those opposite, 'Slit, slit, cut.' We do not know what we are talking about here. You could not even account for your own budget figures. Can you believe that those opposite would have the gall to attack us on economic credibility? That is unbelievable stuff. One of them is in the House now and still confused.

We will return to surplus. When we presented the budget this year, did the Leader of the Opposition present a budget? No. Was there a budget reply? No. Was there an alternative to the budget? No. Because they do not know how to construct a constructive budget. The member opposite, the member for Goldstein, is one of those with a record of economic incompetence himself, but he does not want to know about it. Just go and read the papers about your debacle during the election and your figures—an $11 billion black hole, cobber. Go and have a look. Do you know what it means? Of course you do not. You have no idea.

Not only that but we have supported jobs, with unemployment in Australia among the lowest in the world, with almost 750,000 more Australians in work since we came into office in November 2007, and real wage increases have occurred for that work. That is a good record in very difficult times. We have helped those that needed the help the most. We helped pensioners. We drove an increase of around $115 a fortnight for single pensioners and around $97 a fortnight for pensioner couples combined.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Only after we shamed you into it.

Sid Sidebottom (Braddon, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You can get your pension a little bit later. You just wait. I think it was the first one in 100 years. You had 13 years to do something about pensioners except talk about yourself and pensioners. You did nothing. Well, we did something and it is indexed, so we have got the record. We did it, we constructively did it; you did nothing. What we did do was get rid of your nasty, mean, miserable Work Choices.

A government member: Which they want to bring back.

And you want to bring it back because you are mean, you are nasty and miserable. (Time expired)

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I remind the member for Braddon in future to address his remarks through the chair, not at the chair.

Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on this matter of public importance. There has been a global financial crisis and six million jobs have been demolished worldwide. The first test of any government is to withstand economic recession, withstand the gale force winds coming internationally, and provide jobs and economic growth for this country. This Prime Minister is delivering on jobs. The importance of this is that we know a job is the best insurance for a person's prosperity and the best chance to meet the cost of living. It is the best chance for them to withstand the rigours of the modern world.

This government protected over 200,000 jobs during a time when the rest of the world was going backwards and suffering unemployment. If we look at our nearest neighbour, New Zealand, 6.8 per cent unemployment—and that was Tony Abbott's model. The United Kingdom has 7.8 per cent. The US and Europe have unemployment rates in excess of nine per cent and Canada, which has a resource-rich economy just like our own, has an unemployment rate of 7.8 per cent.

Australia, unique around the world, has created jobs. This government has created over 740,000 jobs since coming to office and just in the last two months we have seen 7,800 new jobs created. What is projected by Treasury is a further 500,000 jobs. That means that our unemployment rate, unique in the world at 4.9 per cent, will drop in mid-2013 to 4.5 per cent.

That is the key indicator of whether or not a prime minister delivers to the country. Jobs are the key indicator. For my constituents, it is literally the difference between getting by or really suffering poverty. It is the difference between being able to buy a house or being able to afford the rent or being able to feed the family. It is a critical indicator. It is the only indicator in the end that really matters. But this Prime Minister is doing so much more because, if you saw the recent budget, the member for Lalor is setting up a jobs and skills escalator for people in my electorate and electorates all over this country. We know that jobs are the key to creating wealth and helping families meet the cost of living, but skills are the guarantee of job security, higher pay and higher national productivity. It is skills that make all the difference to people. It is skills that insulate people from economic recession and job insecurity. It is skills through apprenticeships that give young people a future and it is skills which build the economy.

When we came to power in 2007 the biggest problem employers would tell me about is that they could not find skilled employees. They could not find job ready employees. It was a tragedy because there were long-term unemployed people in my electorate who had been ignored through a decade of the previous government. This government is going to spend $3 billion on skills over six years—apprenticeships, industry assistance, industry led involvement and degrees. We are not degree snobs. The old government used to talk about job snobs. We are not degree snobs. We think people getting degrees is a good idea. We think people who have worked in trades who later go to university is a good thing. We think learning is for life and we think skills are important. They are important to individuals, they are important to families and they are important to this economy.

We have Australia working and we see that the parliament is also working. There have been 135 pieces of legislation, none defeated and not a single amendment carried without government support. Australians are working, the parliament is working and the Prime Minister is working. That is the important thing.

One of the most contentious issues of this era, unauthorised maritime arrivals, is a problem which bedevils the world. You have only to look at Europe and America—which does not have unauthorised maritime arrivals but obviously they have border issues— to see that. It is a most difficult issue for nation-states to deal with. We have a Prime Minister who has approached it with security and integrity in mind. That is what we have—a package of domestic laws to combat people smugglers, progress through the Bali arrangements and cooperation with our neighbouring countries, like Indonesia. Finally, Indonesia has domestic laws which combat people smuggling. We have an agreement with Malaysia and the UNHCR. That basically means that we have security and integrity, and that means that we will get long-term results and not the sort of results where people go off to Nauru for an extended stay before they come to Australia. We are not going to have those sorts of temporary and expensive arrangements.

Climate change is an existential threat to the world. It is a big problem, despite what Lord Monckton and others say. It is the biggest international issue of our time. We—the government and the Prime Minister—are working to build a domestic political consensus with this parliament, which was elected by the Australian people, where no party has a majority. The expectation of the Australian people was that we would work together. The Prime Minister held out the hand of bipartisanship and offered a place on the climate change committee to the opposition and they refused to take it. It is a worldwide problem and five of our top trading partners—Japan, China, the US, Korea and India—have implemented or are piloting carbon trading or other schemes to combat climate change. Europe has had a trading scheme since 2005. The Prime Minister is providing leadership and the opposition are sitting out, carping and saying no.

It is like this on so many other issues—the NBN, schools, superannuation. On all of those issues the government is making progress and the opposition is just opposing and saying, 'No, no, no, no.' They are refusing to acknowledge that there are any positives in more superannuation. They are refusing to acknowledge that there are any positives in having computers in schools. It seems incredible that you would oppose putting computers in schools, but they do.

The most important thing the Prime Minister has done is abolish Work Choices. She has protected job security in this country and she has protected people's conditions of employment, such as their penalty rates. The next most important thing to having a job is having a well-paid job and having some dignity when you work and not being pushed around and having your penalty rates changed. The Prime Minister has safeguarded Australian values and ensured that Australian companies take a high-wage, high-skill path rather than a race to the bottom where we compete with low-wage countries.

It is worth looking at the alternative. We know that they will return to Work Choices. The members for Kooyong, Mayo, Moncrieff and Higgins—the young guns of the party—want to knock Mr Robb, the member for Goldstein, who is here, off the front bench. Let us be honest about it. These young guns are champing at the bit, all advocating for industrial relations reform. That is what they want. They want a position on the front bench. We know this from Barry O'Farrell. He said nothing about industrial relations before the election. As soon as he was elected, the first thing he did was get stuck into workers.

We know the alternative on climate is direct subsidy, this orgy of taxpayers' money—$20 billion in the short term and $18 billion a year in the future. That is what it will cost this country to subsidise polluters if the full range of carbon cuts come in. That is what it would end up costing this country. Then we look at who this opposition leader listens to. We know he was granted a meeting last year with Lord Monckton. We wonder what kind of government he would lead. Maybe there would be a big phone on the Prime Minister's desk with a big 'M' on it. Every time I see Lord Monckton he reminds me of that character out of Austin Powers, Dr Evil. We could have the member for Warringah as the character Number 2. The member for Flinders could be Mini-Me. Perhaps the member for Longman could be Scott Evil. I will not even talk about who might play Frau Farbissina. The member for Dawson might be wearing a kilt and speaking with a Scottish accent.

The thing about it is that it is a farce. The opposition leader seeks to turn this country into a farce. He seeks to use this parliament as an incense burner to his own vanity. He seeks to make the whole thing a big joke. That is what he does when he meets and shares a platform with Lord Monckton, who is an extremist and beyond the pale. Even today, when he compared good Australians to Nazis, what did the opposition leader say? He said, 'Oh, he went a bit over the top.' The problem with this Leader of the Opposition is that he will share a platform with anybody and do anything to seek power in this country. He is prepared to dance with the very devil himself to do it.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have listened—'with interest ' would be the wrong words—to the nonsense coming from the other side of the chamber. I think it is time that we iterated what the problem is with this government. The problem with the government is that it is an illegitimate government. It has no legitimacy at all. You had 12 months ago the assassination of Kevin Rudd at the hand of 'Lady Macbeth', otherwise known as Julia Gillard, who did him in, took the job and became—

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, the member for Mackellar knows full well she must refer to members by their title.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I call the member for Mackellar. She will refer to members in the chamber by their seat or their title.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

So we had the Prime Minister of this day assassinate the previous Prime Minister, the member for Griffith, 12 months ago and usurp his position, announcing at the time that she would ask the Governor-General permission to hold an election so that she could in fact have a mandate in her own name in order to govern. We went to that election and there was no outcome. The Prime Minister was not elected. The opposition won the majority of primary votes. We saw that there was then a frenzied attempt to stitch up a deal, just as there had been a deal struck up 12 months ago. This time we had the performance of the various Independents, who were strutting their stuff in their moment of grandeur. They finally agreed that they would back up the Prime Minister for the purposes of allowing the budget to pass and that they would not support a no confidence motion.

That does not make the government legitimate. It does not make the Prime Minister legitimate. It means that she is floundering every day and every week, having to consult with the Independents about what it is that they want, to see how she can serve their needs, to see how they can be accommodated. In the meantime, ordinary members of the Labor Party are left to flounder because their needs come second to appeasing the demands of the Independents. It does not matter what the issue is. It does not matter whether it is suddenly having to deal with the difficult issue of the live export of cattle, where the original decision that was taken by the minister was the correct one. Because she was once again leant on by an Independent who wanted something, the whole of the policy was overturned and a complete ban was put in place. There was no consideration at all—none—for those people whose livelihoods were at stake. There was no consideration about their families, about their aspirations. It was simply: 'How can I appease one of the Independents so that I can cling to power?' That is all she cares about—clinging to power.

Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

And the Greens.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Greens are always going to vote for the Labor Party. It does not matter whether she has to appease them in this chamber. Of course, in the Senate after 1 July we will start to see the Greens exercising their power and insisting that they get their way on so many things. We have the prospect of Lee Rhiannon coming into the Senate, who has great form when we see her track record in the New South Wales upper house. We remember that it was her parents who founded the Communist Party and, when the split occurred, they stuck with Stalin despite the dreadful record of what Stalin was doing to the Russian people. We have a great venue for conflict coming up in the Senate when we look at that behaviour and the squabbling that will occur between the Greens.

In this matter of public importance discussion we are looking at the failure of this stitched-up deal, with the Prime Minister attempting to govern and failing to govern competently for the simple reason that she is not legitimately in that position. If we look at the carbon tax issue, it is a classic. Six days before the election, it was: 'There will be no carbon tax by any government I lead.' It was, categorically, 'Believe me, Australian people, I am telling you the truth.' That was Julia telling us, 'Trust me, I will not do this to you.' When she got in, of course that was overturned and we are to have this great big carbon tax.

Even in question time today the Prime Minister could not tell the truth. She was asked a question and she insisted that she was in surplus. We are promised one for 2013, but we certainly have not got one now. At every instance in her answers today, we saw a complete miasma of lies—a virus, if you like.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: The member for Mackellar will withdraw that reflection on the Prime Minister.

Miasma?

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, lies.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the Manager of Government Business does not know what a miasma is, so I will withdraw it.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER: No, you used the word 'lies'.

Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy Speaker, it is an outrageous abuse that the member for Mackellar, when asked to withdraw by you, has chosen not to do so. She clearly did not withdraw what you specifically asked her to withdraw. She should do so. She should do so unconditionally. I know that she thinks parliament is sitting on 24 December, but she should get this right.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Member for Mackellar, I did require you to withdraw those comments. You used the word 'lies' and that is what I ask you to withdraw.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thought you said that I was reflecting on someone. I was reflecting that there was a miasma.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No, I asked you to withdraw the word 'lies'.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will withdraw it if you wish, Mr Deputy Speaker.

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Not if I wish. I do ask you to withdraw the use of the word 'lies'.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop (Mackellar, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Seniors) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw it. But I am curious about the poor old Manager of Government Business over there; in question time today he was talking about the year being 2010. He is getting all sorts of things mixed up. We will go back to talking about the lack of legitimacy of this government and the carbon tax. This is a tax which the Labor Party has wished to liken to the GST. The difference with the GST was that we in fact repealed and abolished the wholesale sales tax and then we went to the people with the proposition that we should have a GST, because we previously said there would not be one. We went to the election and we were successful in that election and that came about.

The carbon tax is the Labor Party's Work Choices. Just as the Labor Party repealed Work Choices, we will repeal their carbon tax if they are successful in passing it. They showed it was quite clearly a 'can be done'. Just as they said they would repeal it, we will—

Bruce Scott (Maranoa, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time allotted for this discussion has now expired.