George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

I am sorry, Mr Deputy President. I did not know the word 'popinjay' was unparliamentary, but if you so rule then let me withdraw it. The Minister for Infrastructure and Transport described with utter contempt a gathering of thousands of Australians who had exercised the most fundamental right you can exercise in a democracy—the right to come to their nation's parliament to express their grievance to government, to petition the government with their grievances. Our democratic system was born from the cauldron of people petitioning on grievances against their government. That is what those people did, only to be dismissed by Mr Anthony Albanese as a convoy of inconsequence. Those words, I am sorry to say, will come back to haunt the Prime Minister, Mr Albanese and all the ministers of this government. The fact that the view of Australian citizens who want to express a grievance against their government, because they think the government has gone wrong, is that they are people of no consequence. That is what Mr Albanese said to them yesterday.

We know this government was constructed on a lie, the most infamous lie in the history of Australian politics: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead.' But now this government's continued tenure in office depends upon another credibility—not just the Prime Minister's credibility, but the credibility of a man called Craig Thomson, the member for Dobell. Mr Craig Thomson stands accused of a number of serious allegations: allegations of fraud; allegations of stealing members' funds from the trade union of which he was once the national secretary.

I am pleased to say that the New South Wales police today decided to examine whether or not Mr Thomson has in fact committed these crimes. We do not prejudge that. I am bound to say that Mr Thomson's explanations are very implausible. Nevertheless, that is a matter for the proper authorities to pursue. I might also say that Mr Thomson himself has alleged that a crime has been committed, of which he was the victim. He said somebody forged his signature on credit card vouchers. If Mr Thomson is telling the truth, a crime has been committed of which he was the victim. If he is not telling the truth, a crime has been committed of which he was the perpetrator. On either view, there is a taint of criminality about these events. Last week, on each consecutive day, the Prime Minister told the House of Representatives she had full confidence in Mr Craig Thomson. I understand she repeated it again in question time today. So the Prime Minister has staked her entire government's credibility upon the credibility of Mr Craig Thomson. The Prime Minister has made the integrity of Mr Craig Thomson the test of the integrity of her own government. Because the Prime Minister was elected on a lie a little over a year ago when she said there would be no carbon tax under the government she leads, you would think that perhaps that was a heroic thing for Ms Gillard to do—a person whose own integrity is under such a cloud in the eyes of the Australian people joining herself, fusing the integrity of her own government, with the integrity of a person under a cloud such as Mr Craig Thomson. But that is what she has done.

Go through it. Whether it be the famously incompetent manner in which the Gillard government and before it the Rudd government conducted the public affairs of this country, whether it be the undisguised contempt with which ministers in the Gillard government regard the Australian people and people who might disagree with them, as exhibited by Mr Albanese's remark yesterday that people who come to petition with their grievances against the government are inconsequential, or whether it is the fact that a government elected on a lie now depends for its very political survival on the integrity of Mr Craig Thomson, for all of those reasons the opposition says, and in saying so mirrors the overwhelming sentiment of the Australian people: 'Give us an election. Resolve the political situation of this country and face the people, because the people are your masters, a fact which you have forgotten.'