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

I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent the Member for Watson from moving the following motion immediately—The House calls on the Deputy Prime Minister to stand aside from Cabinet until doubts about his constitutional qualifications have been resolved.

Even the Prime Minister wasn't listening to a word of that answer. Even the Prime Minister was turning his back on the Deputy Prime Minister. When you're in a situation where you're off campaigning in your electorate—where you're already campaigning in the by-election—and the Prime Minister himself is turning his back on you when you're giving an answer, it's time to acknowledge that it's time to go, that it's time to stand aside. It's time for this Deputy Prime Minister to realise that it's no small matter when the Constitution says you probably shouldn't be here.

The argument from the government is what we heard yesterday and today from the Prime Minister of Australia—that the only reason they referred it to the High Court is to give the High Court an opportunity to make a decision on this section of the Constitution. Hang on. We'd already referred Senator Canavan to the High Court. They were already going to have an opportunity to rule on this issue. If they were already going to have that opportunity, why did we refer the Deputy Prime Minister to the High Court? There's one reason and one reason only.

There's a reason why they won't let anyone see the Solicitor-General's advice. It's not the ironclad, nowhere-to-go advice that the Prime Minister wants us to believe it is. He does know that everything for the legitimacy of this government hangs on that advice being as strong as he wants us to believe, so the only option the Prime Minister has is to tell everybody, 'It's unbelievably strong, but I'm going to keep it a secret.' When we asked, 'Why is it that we had to refer the deputy there in the first place?' he said it was to give them 'an opportunity', but they already had that as a result of Senator Canavan. They were going to rule on the same section of the Constitution.

We have a Prime Minister who will say anything and do anything to cling to office. We should deal with this motion immediately because the Prime Minister is willing to misrepresent advice from the Solicitor-General in order to make sure that he can get away with the crisis behind whether or not this government has a majority. If the Prime Minister thinks that me saying, 'These documents that you've got aren't as good as you say,' is an unreasonable argument for me to run, let's click back to Monday—because on Monday he said exactly that about documents in the possession of the Leader of the Opposition. On Monday he said exactly what I've just said, 'Those documents aren't as strong as you're claiming they are, and if you've got the courage of your convictions, you'll stand up and show the documents.' What happened straight after question time after the Prime Minister said that? The Leader of the Opposition said, 'If the conspiracy theories of the internet trolls are now going to be run by the Prime Minister of Australia, here are the documents.'

Unless the advice from the Solicitor-General is a complete con and unless the Prime Minister is completely misrepresenting the advice that he has, when he stands up in a moment he should provide us with the advice. Show the courage of conviction that the Leader of the Opposition showed. Show that you're willing to stand by the claims that you make. The Leader of the Opposition was able to sit here with the documents in his hand. The Prime Minister said, 'Show us the documents,' and we did.

It's not simply the Prime Minister's reputation that hangs on the strength of that advice; the entire legitimacy of this government hangs on the strength of that advice. This government, which claims to have a majority of one, has become the first government in the history of Australia to go to the High Court to ask whether it's true that it, in fact, has a lawful majority. It's the first time that that has ever happened in the history of our country.

What do they think is not a problem? They think it's not a problem to have doubt over every decision made on regional development, regional communications, local government, resources, territories, agriculture, water resources and northern Australia. As of Friday they will be willing to have under constitutional doubt, under a constitutional cloud, every decision that would otherwise be taken by the Prime Minister of Australia. We accept and we agree with every issue that has been made about national security. Why on earth in that environment is the Prime Minister about to put somebody, who we unanimously don't know if they're legally there, in charge of every decision that this nation takes while the Prime Minister is away?

How on earth can there be any level of responsibility from those opposite and from the Prime Minister if they're willing to take that sort of risk? But if he won't make that sort of decision as a matter of principle, if he won't make that sort of decision as a matter of precaution, if he won't even make that sort of decision as a matter of consistency, can I suggest to the Prime Minister: do it as a matter of self-defence.

If you date back to the moment the Deputy Prime Minister first stood there and told us about his New Zealand citizenship—since that moment, the government has become increasingly whacky. Since that moment, the government has lurched from one conspiracy theory to the next conspiracy theory. I don't know what was unleashed in the minds of those opposite from the moment we heard about the New Zealand citizenship of the Deputy Prime Minister, but from that moment we heard about the New Zealand conspiracy, the Cuban conspiracy, East Germany and the Berlin Wall; we heard from them about socialism, communism, Stalinism, and then the great United Kingdom secret-agent-and-Leader-of-the-Opposition conspiracy. Those opposite have gone into the most ridiculous spiral of self-satire since the moment the Deputy Prime Minister let it be known that he was a citizen of another country.

What's behind all of this is the document that the Prime Minister claims he's very familiar with. That is the document called the Australian Constitution. It's no small matter as to whether the Constitution is kept to. There are plenty of times when governments get advice from the Solicitor-General and, when they get the advice, they say, 'Yes, we're confident of what we're doing.' But when you get the strongest advice, that is not when you say, 'But we'd better go and check with the High Court.' That's not the moment you check with the High Court. You check with the High Court for one reason and one reason only—and that is that, after reading the advice, the Prime Minister thought, 'We don't know whether the deputy is legally here.' He looked at the advice and thought, 'We don't know whether we actually have 75 members of this parliament voting with the government. We don't know.'

There are lots of times when governments of both sides get advice that's strong and they stand at the dispatch box and say, 'No. Others might challenge this in court, but we are confident of our position.' This time they got the advice and said, 'We'd better go straight to the High Court.' That is why Labor will continue to pursue this issue: it goes to whether the government is lawfully in office. There have been real-life outcomes on penalty rates and real-life outcomes in terms of who's in charge of the banks. But here's the thing: it has also resulted in the real-life outcome as to whether he gets the job. Every other principle will go to one side when that is jeopardised. We've seen the Prime Minister being willing to compromise every previously stated view. He claimed to be passionate about something on the basis of: 'This is just what you have to do to maintain a majority.' We have a situation where, for the first time in the history of this parliament, there is doubt as to the constitutionality of the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. Prime Minister, stand him aside. If you have any courage and if you have any authority, you would have done it more than a fortnight ago.

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

Is the motion seconded?

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I second the motion. The pork-barrelling in New England has cranked up a notch or two. From the Hunter electorate you can smell the pork! This is the question: if the Prime Minister is so confident about the decision of the High Court, why is the Deputy Prime Minister currently already campaigning for a New England by-election? The other great thing about representing the Hunter electorate—the neighbouring electorate to New England—is that people talk. People talk to the member in the neighbouring electorate and what they are telling me is that, suddenly, they're seeing the member for New England. For the first time in three years, the member for New England is turning up. In fact, he's going to the opening of an envelope. After years of doing nothing, he's ramping up the campaign in New England. And why is he ramping up the campaign in New England? It's because, like the Prime Minister, he knows that his chances of running the gauntlet in the High Court are very poor indeed. The reason the Prime Minister will not table the Solicitor-General's advice is that he knows that it's not as strong as he's making out it is. The Deputy Prime Minister should stand aside.

What do we know about this case? We know that he was a New Zealand citizen. We know that he was a dual citizen. We know what section 44 says. We know that the Prime Minister himself doesn't believe he can win the High Court case. We know that Senator Canavan's case was already providing the Prime Minister with the guidance he needed to determine the fate of section 44. But all he was concerned about was the fate of the Deputy Prime Minister. Why? We know why. It's because, unlike Senator Canavan, the Deputy Prime Minister sits in this place, a place where this Prime Minister desperately needs every vote he can muster—as we saw earlier in the week, where he relied on the vote of the Deputy Prime Minister to survive a vote in this place.

So we know why the Prime Minister is misleading—or, should I say, embellishing—on the Solicitor-General's advice. We understand why he is clinging like death to the Deputy Prime Minister. It's because his whole prime ministership rests on it. What we don't know is why the Deputy Prime Minister is hanging on. But I think we know the answer to that question in part. We know that when he travelled to Canberra to share the bad news with the Prime Minister, he came down here with every intention of resigning and going to a by-election in New England. But the Prime Minister said, 'Oh no; there won't be any of that, because I need your vote in the House of Representatives to survive. You are not going anywhere, and I don't care how embarrassed you are.'

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

The member for Hunter will refer to members by their correct titles.

Joel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I will give him some due here. I know that the Deputy Prime Minister is embarrassed to be sitting in question time every day so illegitimately. He's embarrassed to be here. But this Prime Minister leaves him with no choice.

The arrogance of all this is that the Prime Minister wants us to believe that we're better off having a minister who sits with a big black cloud over his head than having someone else in that position. This is the height of arrogance. This minister is not indispensable—far from it. I can name plenty of his colleagues around the benches opposite who would do a far better job. For their own future career prospects, I'll choose not to name them. But this is not about the ability of the Deputy Prime Minister; it's all about the capacity of the man sitting opposite to hang onto his job. He wants us to believe that a guy with a big black cloud hanging over his head, and with a poor record, in any case—an agriculture minister who has done nothing for the agriculture sector in four years—is better off in that job with that big black cloud over his head than anyone else sitting around the benches. I know that they're starting to ask questions about that. They're starting to ask questions as to why this bloke gets to stick around despite his poor performance over four years and despite the fact that he's probably in breach of section 44 of the Constitution. So the rumblings have begun. The rumblings have begun in earnest.

But one thing is clear: the Deputy Prime Minister knows that he's going to a by-election. That's why they're on the campaign trail. That's why they're booking their campaign offices. That's why the leaflets are already being handed out. This Prime Minister should— (Time expired)

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

The question is that the motion moved—

Opposition members interjecting—

The Prime Minister will resume his seat. Members on my left! It's completely disorderly behaviour. I'm trying to state the question. I wouldn't have thought those sitting behind the Manager of Opposition Business would want me to delay stating the question, so the debate can proceed. The question is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be agreed to. The Prime Minister.

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

The House has urgent matters to discuss: energy prices and jobs. We've just heard from the member for Hunter who claims, apparently, that section 44 is the leading topic of conversation in his electorate. I tell you what, I know what the topic is. The topic is why he has abandoned the workers at Liddell, why he has abandoned the workers at Tomago and why he's abandoned the workers who elected him. And it is why this old boy of Cessnock High School, whose magazine is called The Black diamond, has suddenly become 'no coal Joel'. That's what he's up to—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

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

The Prime Minister will refer to members by their correct titles.

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

We have had in the last two days very, very grave reports from the Australian Energy Market Operator, demonstrating that we face a grave shortage of dispatchable energy in the near term and over the medium term. That is putting jobs at risk and it's putting households under pressure. It is what happens when you have years of mistaken Labor energy policy.

Opposition members: Table the advice!

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

The Prime Minister will resume his seat for a second. The members for Rankin, Ballarat and Brand will leave under 94(a). The member for Ballarat will leave immediately or she will be named.

The members for Rankin, Ballarat and Brand then left the chamber.

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

What we've been told by the Australian Energy Market Operator is that the likelihood of a shortfall incident is between 39 and 43 per cent in Victoria and 26 and 33 per cent in South Australia, and that is a consequence of dispatchable power being driven out of the market by renewable energy.

Now, renewable energy is becoming more available and it's becoming cheaper, and we are undertaking the largest renewable energy project built in Australia since the first Snowy scheme. So, we don't make any challenge to renewable energy. But one of the things the Labor Party has forgotten is that the sun doesn't shine all the time and the wind doesn't blow all the time. So in their mindless incompetence, in their reckless idiocy, they have proceeded down the track—

Ms Husar interjecting—

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

The member for Lindsay is warned!

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

of putting more and more variable renewables into the energy mix and providing no backup and no storage. What about gas as a firming power? That would be good: you could use gas. But, oh no, another great achievement of the Labor Party was that they allowed gas to be exported from the east coast of Australia and, despite many warnings, failed to do anything to protect the domestic market.

To be fair, the member for Port Adelaide has made a confession, and better late than never; I think we all agree with that. But it was rather late in coming. When he was on Insiders on 30 April, he was asked by Barrie Cassidy: 'You got plenty of advice when you were in government that the surge in exports would lead to these sorts of problems. You didn't take this action.' 'No,' said the member for Port Adelaide, 'We didn't get that advice.' That was very, very bad because the Labor Party government's own energy white paper said that these transitional pressures will manifest in tighter supply and higher prices.

As if that weren't enough, the AEMO's Gas Statement of Opportunities in the same year said, 'This will result in supply shortfalls'. That's exactly what happened. Finally, it all caught up with him and he had to confess to David Speers—not a man of the cloth, not able to give absolution any more than his constituents or Australians will give the Labor Party absolution for their chronic failure in energy policy. Again and again, ideology and idiocy. Why are gas prices so high? Because Labor allowed gas to be exported and didn't protect the domestic market. That's a fact.

Who's addressing it? We're addressing it. That's the matter we should be discussing today. That's really urgent. Energy prices are an urgent matter right now. That's what Australian families are talking about. That's what's putting Australian businesses and jobs at risk. And we've been told that AEMO estimates that in 2022 there will be a 1,000 megawatt shortfall in dispatchable energy in the national electricity market. That is a very big gap. That puts at risk jobs, businesses, families. It creates a huge vulnerability for blackouts. Now this is the big difference: we are for affordable and reliable energy; Labor is for blackouts. Labor is for energy shortages. Labor is for the types of outcomes the member for Port Adelaide has got used to in South Australia. He clearly loves being in the dark!

A government member: He called it a hiccup.

That's right; he called it a hiccup. When those hospitals had energy cut-offs, he called it a hiccup. That's all it was. One of the obvious opportunities to cover that 1,000 megawatt gap is to get more life out of existing coal-fired power stations, and Liddell obviously has an opportunity to run for longer—to run past 2022. Now, you would think that this is an obvious opportunity. It has been flagged by Alan Finkel himself as a good avenue to go down, and it has been flagged by AEMO as a prudent approach. It's perfectly obvious that the cheapest coal-fired power is that from existing power stations, so you would think you would get some support for that, particularly from the member for Hunter. But this is what he said: 'not one energy company has shown any interest in the Prime Minister's thought bubble'. Sadly, that turns out to be very quickly out of date. He has denied any opportunity to provide continued employment for the workers at Liddell or, indeed, for the workers at Tomago.

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

No, the honourable member can't dig his way out of that. You're deep in the pit, Member for Hunter, right at the bottom. There's risk of a cave-in if you go any further, I can tell you. You are in very deep waters here. The member for Hunter is betraying every member of his electorate who depends on energy, who depends on manufacturing.

The Labor Party have walked away from energy security. They have walked away from any attempt to defend the jobs, the occupations of those many workers they claim to represent. And we have the Leader of the Opposition's union, the Australian Workers Union, with lots of miners. The Leader of the Opposition used to represent a lot of miners.

Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Once upon a time.

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

He did. He represented them. And then he gave $100,000 of their dues to GetUp! What did GetUp! use the $100,000 for? They used it for a campaign to close down the industries that employed his members. What that tells you is that the Leader of the Opposition, like all of these union bosses, is utterly disconnected from the members he represents. These are the issues we should be discussing. We should be focused today on energy policy, as we have been throughout this question time. And what we've had from the opposition instead are big threats of creating chaos and mayhem in the parliament, a swingeing question time strategy. We felt battered by it over here—it was like being flogged with a wet lettuce!

The reality is the Labor Party has failed Australians on energy and now, when we see the result, when the facts are laid out by AEMO, the Labor Party is not prepared to discuss it. Those are the issues we should be discussing. That's why this motion should be rejected. We have urgent matters of energy security to deal with in this House. We should be addressing today the jobs, the businesses, the households of Australia. We can discuss those today. The Labor Party should focus on the real concerns of the people they so dismally represent—the people they claim to represent. (Time expired)

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

The time allotted for this debate has concluded. The question is that the motion moved by the Manager of Opposition Business be agreed to.

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

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