House debates

Monday, 15 June 2020

Statements by Members

Morrison Government

4:21 pm

Photo of Andrew LeighAndrew Leigh (Fenner, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Treasury) Share this | | Hansard source

Another day and another promise that the Prime Minister will likely fail to deliver on. The coalition promised a draft bill to establish a national integrity commission by last Christmas, but for those who want a federal ICAC there was nothing under the Christmas tree. This government promised immediate support for bushfire victims. Months later, only four per cent have received help. They said six million people were receiving the JobKeeper payment and then admitted that the truth was about half as many. They have left the arts sector behind, and the university sector has been deliberately excluded. There might be a pandemic going on, but they're not too busy to fight the culture wars. Among charities, just one in 13 can access the JobKeeper program, and some face the real prospect of going bust.

The Morrison government promised to support hundreds of thousands of jobs in the HomeBuilder program, and then admitted they're actually only going to support around 7,000 projects. The Prime Minister promised to 'burn for you every single day. Instead we got Watergate, sports rorts and Jam Land. We got robodebt, doctored internet documents and outlandish internet bills. You'd think the one might solve the other, but they couldn't even manage that. And then, today, they promised $1½ billion for infrastructure, but when you read the fine print it turns out most of the construction work is in constructing feasibility studies. They're all headline and no policy, all hat and no cattle, all foam and no beer, all mouth and no trousers.