House debates

Monday, 24 November 2014

Motions

Prime Minister; Attempted Censure

2:55 pm

Photo of Bill ShortenBill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

I seek leave to move the following motion:

That this House censures the Prime Minister for:

1) repeatedly and deliberately misleading the parliament and the Australian people by

a) promising no cuts to the ABC or SBS, but cutting over $500 million and at least 400 jobs from these organisations;

b) promising before the election no cuts to education, no cuts to health, but cutting $80 billion from schools and hospitals;

c) promising before the election no cuts to education, but cutting more than $5.8 billion from our universities, meaning Australian students will pay more than $100,000 for a degree;

d) promising before the election no cuts to health, but hitting every Australian with a GP tax every time they visit the doctor;

e) promising no changes to pensions, but cutting $450 million from pension indexation;

f) promising no change to the GST, but coercing states and territories to make the case for them;

g) promising to build submarines in Australia, but going back on this promise; and

h) promising no new or increased taxes, but ambushing the Australian people with a $2.2 billion petrol tax.

2) for his dishonest and unfair budget which is hurting Australians.

2:57 pm

Photo of Christopher PyneChristopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | | Hansard source

Leave is not granted.

Photo of Bill ShortenBill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

I move:

That so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent that Honourable the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion immediately.

That this House censures the Prime Minister for:

1) repeatedly and deliberately misleading the parliament and the Australian people by:

a) promising no cuts to the ABC or SBS, but cutting over $500 million and at least 400 jobs from these organisations;

b) promising before the election no cuts to education, no cuts to health, but cutting $80 billion from schools and hospitals;

c) promising before the election no cuts to education, but cutting more than $5.8 billion from our universities, meaning Australian students will pay more than $100,000 for a degree;

d) promising before the election no cuts to health, but hitting every Australian with a GP tax every time they visit the doctor;

e) promising no changes to pensions, but cutting $450 million from pension indexation;

f) promising no change to the GST, but blackmailing states and territories to make the case for him;

g) promising to build submarines in Australia, but going back on this promise; and

h) promising no new or increased taxes, but ambushing the Australian people with a $2.2 billion petrol tax.

2) for his dishonest and unfair budget which is hurting Australians.

The Prime Minister stared down the barrel of a camera the night before the election and he promised:

… no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.

This is why we must suspend standing orders. In question after question in this parliament today, the words of the Prime Minister were put back to him. Did he have the honesty to say: 'I said this'? Not at all. Instead he ran all sorts of disingenuous, dishonest defences.

He said he promised no special treatment. Well, actually, he did. He said, 'no cuts to ABC, no cuts to SBS'. We did not make him say that script. I am sure there are now ministers in the government slapping their hands over their foreheads and saying, 'What on earth was the Prime Minister thinking?' But this is a Prime Minister who was adrift in terms of his own policy. He has no regulators or breaks in terms of what he says and when he says it. He promised no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, no changes to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.

This is why we should suspend standing orders: he is cutting half a billion dollars from the ABC. This Prime Minister says, 'It's just waste.' How dare this man say to 400 people that you are just a waste. How dare he say, as he shuts down the ABC radio in Morwell, that that is just a waste—and in Gladstone and in Nowra. This is a Prime Minister who does not know the value of the people who work for the public service of Australia. He has taken over $45 million as a down-payment out of the Australia Network. Then he sent Malcolm Turnbull, a man who spent his adult political life trying to pretend he is different from Tony Abbott

Opposition members: Stay! Stay!

Actions speak louder than words for Malcolm Turnbull.

What we see with the ABC is that the Prime Minister is engaging in an extremist, ruthless right-wing campaign to silence the ABC.

Photo of Mrs Bronwyn BishopMrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The member for Lalor will go back to her seat or remain silent.

Photo of Bill ShortenBill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

This is a Prime Minister who has no integrity when it comes to keeping his commitments to the Australian people. The reason we believe that standing orders should be suspended to censure this Prime Minister is that it is not just about the cuts to the ABC. What he is seeking to do is lay waste to the moral basis of pluralism and democracy in this country. He is a narrow man and he has no ideology other than extremism.

Look at what they seek to do to our hospitals. In the budget—the document that dare not speak its name, the document that has effectively destroyed the authority of the Treasurer in this parliament once and for all—they say there are no cuts to hospitals. But when you study their budget documents they clearly show that there are massive cuts coming to hospitals. Tony Abbott has now excised the state of Victoria from the Australian Commonwealth—that is why he sends his foreign minister to visit Victoria. And of course his poor old beleaguered Victorian MPs love the petrol tax three weeks out from an Victorian election—another gift from a foreign nation called Tony Abbott! They are going to cut $13 billion from the hospitals of Victoria over the next 10 years. Shame Liberal, shame.

Then we look at schools. Before the last election the Prime Minister said no cuts. They send out the petition meister, the education minister—I tell you what, if you ever need a cabinet minister, don't ring him, but if you want an ineffective petition, Christopher Pyne is your man. He would actually be hilarious if he were not a cabinet minister. The issue is that they are going to cut billions from schools.

This is a government that is adrift. They have no domestic policy. The budget indicates their failure to have a plan for Australia. There is no future plan for Australia under this government. They say before the election they support needs based funding. They say before the election that they are the best friends that public schools will ever see. Then, once they get elected, they break their promise. But it does not just stop at hospitals and it does not just stop at schools.

How about the submarines promise? Who knows what deal this Prime Minister has done with the Prime Minister of Japan and the Americans not to build submarines in Australia? That will come out. But the Prime Minister promised. It does not matter about the shouting from the beleaguered backbench of the government. Late at night, when they pull the doona over their head, in that fearful part of their heart they know that the Prime Minister has led them into a colossal disaster. Why on earth did the Prime Minister lie? This is a Prime Minister who made his reputation, more than any other figure in modern Australian politics, when he tried to crucify Julia Gillard by saying he would not break his promises.

Honourable members interjecting

Photo of Mrs Bronwyn BishopMrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

There will be silence on both sides!

Photo of Bill ShortenBill Shorten (Maribyrnong, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

But there is no Prime Minister who has ever broken so many promises. Look at this smirking fellow—he is so happy with himself. What did he say today? 'I didn't say there'd be special treatment.' He has attacked the media, the ABC, for being wasteful. Who are you to defame so many people in our public broadcaster?

It is not just the submarines. What about the petrol tax? How many Victorian MPs have asked Tony Abbott to come and open their launches in the state campaign? If there are more than none, I will be amazed. But it is not just that. Then we look at the GST. This is a Prime Minister who has turned his back on all his own views in Battlelines and believing in a strong national government. He is disowning the functions of the federal government, he is turning his back on 50 years of cooperative federalism and he is saying, 'We are going to cut and cut and cut the funding to the states to force them to have a GST debate.' This is a Prime Minister who does not have the courage to advocate his own reforms. I would have more respect not for his ideology but for his policy courage if he would come out and advocate a GST, because that is what he thinks. And Australia knows what he thinks.

Then of course we get to arguably the greatest travesty of this government—the attack on the hopes and dreams of millions of Australian students and their families. Those opposite want to create a two-class Australia and a two-tier education system. What they wish to do to higher education is disgraceful: a 20 per cent cut to the funding of universities, doubling the bond rate of the repayment debts of students who go to university. Listen to the silence now. It speaks volumes. Even those opposite know the truth.

This is a government who deserves to be held to account, and that is why standing orders should be suspended. No cuts to pensions, no cuts to the ABC or SBS, no cuts to hospitals or education, no changes to taxes. This is a government who not only lies to the Australian people, who cheated their way into the election by lying to the Australian people; they now lie about lying. Shame, Prime Minister, shame.

Photo of Mrs Bronwyn BishopMrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

Is the motion seconded?

Photo of Jason ClareJason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | | Hansard source

The motion is seconded, and I reserve my right to speak.

3:07 pm

Photo of Christopher PyneChristopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | | Hansard source

I do appreciate the opportunity the Leader of the Opposition has given us to actually talk more generally about the points he has been making.

Opposition Members:

Opposition members interjecting

Photo of Mrs Bronwyn BishopMrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The member for Lingiari will remove himself from the chamber under standing order 94(a).

The member for Lingiari then left the chamber.

Photo of Christopher PyneChristopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | | Hansard source

This is a very broad motion and I would remind the Leader of the Opposition that at no point during his rambling speech did the government take the general point of order that he was not talking to the suspension of standing orders, so I intend to use this as an opportunity to outline to the House and to the Australian people the realities of the political situation that we found ourselves in 12 months ago.

Twelve months ago, after 2007 to 2013, one of the most rotten governments in Australia history was cut down by the Australian people in a landslide defeat. It was not a fluke. It did not just happen. They did not just fall out of office. It was not by one or two seats or half a per cent. They were beaten and beaten badly, because they had six years of the most grotesque chaos and dysfunction that the Australian public has ever had to tolerate.

Let's go through it. They had a Prime Minister in Kevin Rudd. They went to bed one night with Kevin Rudd as the Prime Minister and they woke up the next morning with Julia Gillard was the Prime Minister. They went to bed one night with Julia Gillard as Prime Minister and the next morning they woke up and Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister again. In a six-year period they managed to knife two Prime Ministers in the back, led by the Leader of the Opposition, 'Bill the knife'. In fact, it was exposed by Paul Kelly in his excellent book, where he wrote: 'The Gillard camp was contemptuous of Shorten, considering him weak and duplicitous'.

The Australian public know that for all of the huffing and puffing, all of the confected outrage from the Leader of the Opposition, he has not at any point said that he would put any of the money back that he claims has been taken from any of the areas of government spending. Whether it is efficiency dividends or whether it is a reduction in the increase in spending, he has not said he will put any of that money back or return things to the state they were in in 2013, because he knows that he cannot.

At the next election, in 2016, the Australian public will be faced with the prospect of electing a weak and duplicitous Leader of the Opposition, who could not stay loyal to one Prime Minister, let alone two Prime Ministers, because he was so ambitious, so ruthless and so relentless in his pursuit of power that he stabbed two Prime Ministers in the back, not just one.

During those six year we had Harry Jenkins stabbed in the back and replaced by Peter Slipper, as the Speaker. We had Craig Thomson defended and supported by this Leader of the Opposition and by Julia Gillard throughout the tawdry period when we were trying to bring Craig Thomson into this House to explain himself. We had the pink batts disaster. We had 'cash for clunkers'. We had $16.5 billion wasted on school halls throughout Australia. We had the live cattle export disaster, based on one television program on Four Corners. The Labor Party thought it was good public policy to destroy the live cattle export industry in Australia, putting 1,000 Indigenous workers out of their jobs, destroying livelihoods, destroying farms and breaking people all across Northern Australia.

Opposition members interjecting

Photo of Mrs Bronwyn BishopMrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The member for Watson!

Photo of Christopher PyneChristopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | | Hansard source

They thought that was good government policy. This particular shadow minister here was the one who brought the great super-trawler to Australia, and when the heat came on he stopped the super-trawler from coming into Australia. He was one of the most dangerous vandals to ever hold office in the cabinet of Australia.

The list goes on. When we took over, in 2013, thanks to the Australian public, we were faced with $123 billion of deficits as far as the eye could see. If we had done nothing at all, our debt would have risen to $667 billion—$123 billion of deficits and $667 billion of debt. That is the legacy that Labor left us.

But it is even worse. It was this Leader of the Opposition who brought the CFMEU back into the cabinet room and gave them a seat at the cabinet table. As the minister for industrial relations, he structured industrial relations in this country so that the CFMEU would be able to bring their thuggery, their standover tactics and their outright criminality to building and construction sites throughout the country, once again, having been forced off them by the Australian Building and Construction Commission, set up by the current Prime Minister many years ago.

The list is endless. They misled Australians on a grand scale. Who can forget the current member for Lilley standing up and announcing the 'three years of surpluses that I deliver tonight', knowing that they were never going to deliver a surplus and having not delivered one since 1989. This is the chaos and dysfunction that greeted us when we took over the Treasury benches in 2013. They mugged the mining industry with the mining tax. They mugged export exposed industries through the carbon tax. They cost households at least $550 a year in the electricity bills. They shut down small businesses reliant on electricity and gas, because of the carbon tax. They did all of these things and not unnaturally the Australian people decided to hand over the reigns of power to the current government.

What did we say? Our commitment was this, and I quote the current Prime Minister: 'This is what a Liberal and National Party government will do. We will build a stronger economy so that everyone can get ahead. Free trade agreements with Korea, China and with Japan. A growing economy with 109,000 jobs, at least, created by this government. We will scrap the carbon tax so that your family will be $550 a year better off.' Done. The carbon tax has been abolished. Labor wants to bring it back. We will get the budget back under control by ending Labor's waste, and that is what we are doing, right across government. No agency, no authority and no department should be immune from trying to be less wasteful and spend taxpayers money as well as they possibly can. The government's money is not sitting in the Treasury somewhere, belonging to the government; it belongs to the Australian people, Madam Speaker, and we should never waste one dollar—let alone never apply an efficiency dividend—to an authority that has a $6.9 billion dollar budget over the next five years—for 20 years. The ABC had no efficiency dividend for 20 years. We will stop the boats—tick; we have certainly stopped the boats. This shadow minister, again, said it could not be done. The Left said: 'It is not possible. It is impossible to stop the boats.' What has happened? In the last 12 months, while the Minister for Immigration has been at the helm, the boats have stopped. The children are getting out of detention. We are closing detention centres, whether it is at Curtin or whether it is at Inverbrackie. The Australian public are not stupid, Madam Speaker. They see all these things. They certainly listen to the static that goes on in this place and elsewhere—but they know in their heart of hearts that the government is delivering on its promises.

The Prime Minister also said, 'and we will build the roads of the 21st century'—and that is exactly what we have done; we have started the process, having picked up the broken infrastructure portfolio from the current member for Grayndler. We are getting things done. They were good at announcing things, Madam Speaker. They were good at photo opportunities, although it did not save them. But the current minister for transport and infrastructure is actually getting the work done—to make sure that there are bulldozers moving, and that there are sods being turned on roads infrastructure—whether it is the North-South Corridor in South Australia or the East West Link in Victoria, this government knows that we have to get things done to create jobs and to create growth.

The fundamental difference between us and Labor and the Greens is that we do not just play politics every day; what we do, as cabinet minsters and as members of this government, is every day we think: 'How will we get more jobs flowing into our electorates? How do we get more growth in the economy? How do we repair the damage done by Labor, so that business can create jobs?' That is what we on this side of the House do. We did it in the Menzies era, we did it in the Fraser era, we did it in the Howard era, and we will do it again in the Abbott era. All Labor does is think every day, 'How can we play politics? How can we play politics with people's lives? How can we play politics with household budgets? How can we play politics with big developments like the Olympic Dam in South Australia? How can we give the unions more power and control, so they keep voting for us in preselection?' The fundamental difference between this side of the House and the opposition is this: we care about the Australian public, and they care about the Australian Labor Party. So we will keep doing what we are doing. We will keep governing for the betterment of Australia, and I am absolutely confident that at the next election, the Australian public will support us.

3:17 pm

Photo of Jason ClareJason Clare (Blaxland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Communications) Share this | | Hansard source

There is an old 1957 movie called Witness for the Prosecution, where Charles Laughton plays a crusty old barrister called Sir Wilfrid, and in cross-examination he says to the witness, 'Were you lying then, are you lying now, or are you just a chronic and habitual liar?' Well, Madam Speaker, that is what the Australian people are now asking about this Prime Minster. Put him on a lie detector and it would blow up—because he has broken so many promises. He broke his promise that there would be no cuts to health. He said that there would be no cuts to education—broken. He said there would be no changes to the pension—broken as well. And he said there would be no cuts to the ABC, and no cuts to SBS—so many broken promises.

It is so bad that this is now an issue of trust. People are wondering if they really can trust this Prime Minister. He has become the thing that he once so despised. Remember: this is the man who ran around the country for three years, screaming about broken promises, and saying some things that deserve repeating. He said things like this: 'What I want to do is re-establish the bonds of trust that should exist between government and the people.' So he says all of that—and then he gets into government and breaks every promise he ever made. Hollywood could not make this sort of stuff up. It is like Jekyll and Hyde. I sometimes think he must have amnesia, because by making all these promises and then breaking them, he has shredded his credibility. People trusted this Prime Minister. They might have had their doubts, but they put their faith in him. They trusted him. I do not think they will again.

People do not like it when politicians lie to them, but there is something they hate even more than that. They hate it when people lie about lying—and that is what we have seen in the last few weeks. Last week we had the finance minister, Senator Cormann, say, 'there are no cuts'. And then today, the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Eric Abetz, said, 'nobody has lost their job'. Well, hang on a second; last week they announced hundreds of millions of dollars worth of cuts to the ABC, and today we find out that up to 400 people are going to lose their jobs. So what is the Liberal party's new strategy here? Is it the Jedi mind trick? What is going on here?

Then you have Minister Turnbull—

An opposition member: He is not even in the chamber!

Minister Turnbull is not here. Or, as I like to call him, the new Dennis Denuto of the Australian parliament—because his answer to this broken promise last week was, 'It is all the context. It is all the context.' It is getting ridiculous. It reminds me of that old Bill Clinton story about when he takes his old dog, Buddy, to the vet. He takes his dog to the vet to get desexed, and the vet says, 'don't worry, I will fix him.' And Bill Clinton says, 'that is not a fix; that is a cut.' And we know that this is not a fix; this is a cut, and it is a broken promise, made even more ridiculous by old 'Pontius Pilate' Pyne over there, who cannot fight for the ABC in the cabinet room—he has to put up a petition. And then you have Barnaby barnstorming around the country saying, 'no cuts to the ABC in the bush', and Malcolm Turnbull saying: 'It will all be back-office. Don't worry about that.' Well, today we learned there will be cuts to five regional radio stations; we will lose the 7.30 state editions, Lateline will go to ABC News 24, foreign bureaus will be cut, there will be less sport on the ABC, and 400 people will get the sack—that is why people are angry. They do not like being lied to and they do not like their government lying about lying. That is why people right across this country are thinking the same thing that Charles Laughton said in that old movie: were you lying then, are you lying now, or are you just a chronic and habitual liar?

Photo of Mrs Bronwyn BishopMrs Bronwyn Bishop (Speaker) Share this | | Hansard source

The question is that the motion be agreed to.

Photo of Tony AbbottTony Abbott (Warringah, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | | Hansard source

I ask that further questions be placed on the Notice Paper.