Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Immigration and Border Protection) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister has listed the following as achievements of the Turnbull government's: the Defence white paper, the China-Australia free trade agreement and the Trans-Pacific Partnership. Given the Prime Minister has claimed the member for Warringah's so-called achievements as his own, does he also have plans to copy his duration in office?

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank the honourable member for his question—I do—because he asked a highly political question and in answer to a highly political question we should get a political answer. The real question here today about political longevity is the political longevity of the Leader of the Opposition. It is so tenuous and so under threat. So frightened is this man that he was unwilling to say anything critical of a junior senator from New South Wales, just a junior senator, and from New South Wales—I am not sure whether New South Wales was another fault, in addition to being a junior senator. How junior can you get from the Melbourne—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business on a point of order.

Mr Tony Burke (Watson, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Finance) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On direct relevance. It is a chance for the PM to talk about his achievements. It is a big opportunity—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The Manager of Opposition Business will resume his seat. The Prime Minister will wait a second. I almost gave the Leader of the House the call, because the question was very broad. One could argue that the last part was not in order, but I allowed the Prime Minister to answer it. On a very broad question you are going to get a broad answer.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When we get these broad political questions it is very important to deal with political issues and issues of political culture, because Senator Dastyari, of course, said not so long ago:

You will not find somebody who came more from the ALP machine than me. I'm a product of the machine like you would not believe. I joined the Labor Party when I was 16. I took over my first branches by the time I was 17 ... none of that braced me for an understanding of just how concentrated, brutal and aggressive a handful of businesses operate [in Australia], and the real corporate power where it actually rests in this country.

He then claimed that there are 10 companies that wield the most incredible amount of power. One of those was not his benefactor—his benefactor that succeeded in getting him to abandon the Labor Party's policy on the South China Sea and sign up to the Chinese government's talking points! It is a most extraordinary thing. Joe Hockey said that the age of entitlement is over, but I will tell you what: it is only getting started on the Labor side. What an extraordinary sense of entitlement.

Honourable members interjecting—

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Parramatta.

Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There he is: a senator paid well over twice average weekly earnings, paid money that is massive by the standards of most Australians, and because he is a senator he believes he has the right—and he has that Labor culture, that Sussex Street culture that gives him that right—to ring up a business with a vested interest in changing Australia's policy and ask them for money. That is what he did. He asked them for money to pay his own bills. And what did the Leader of the Opposition do? He said our criticism was petty insinuation—that there was not anything untoward. 'There is nothing to see here. He is just a junior woodchuck.' The Leader of the Opposition abdicated— (Time expired)

Honourable members interjecting—\

Tony Smith (Speaker) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The member for Parramatta will cease interjecting. The member for Corangamite has the call.