Tim Watts (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Communications and Cyber Security) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

As we approach the end of the eighth year of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government, years of doublespeaking from this Prime Minister have finally caught up with him. The Prime Minister said in question time last week that he wants to give Australians a choice. Well, he's given them a choice alright: the choice of whether to believe what he said yesterday or what he's saying today, a choice between what he tells one audience and what he tells another audience. His own MPs have taken him up on this invitation, choosing for themselves which half of the Prime Minister's doublespeak to believe and then choosing to cross the floor in the Reps and the Senate in response. Well, of course not the modern Liberals.

The modern Liberals will pretend to agree with both sides of the Prime Minister's argument with the truth. They'll just go on voting with the government no matter the humiliation. They're pawns of the Morrison-Joyce government, lining up side-by-side with the Deputy Prime Minister, a collection of thin smiles in search of a spine. Barely one month ago the member for Higgins told this House that the government had been 'considering feedback' on its national Integrity Commission bill. It was 'refining' the draft legislation in order to introduce it into the parliament this year. Yesterday the Attorney-General confirmed not only are there no changes to the bill, no refinements, but it won't even be introduced this year. Womp womp womp wom! Sad trombone: it's the battle cry of the modern Liberal. Even worse: this humiliation wasn't enough for any of the modern Liberals to cross the floor to debate the national Integrity Commission bill last week. (Time expired)