Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by the Minister for Finance and Deregulation (Senator Wong) to questions without notice asked by Senators Abetz and Brandis today relating to recent changes in the Government.

Division, seething hatreds and revenge are the new paradigm in this dysfunctional Labor government. Honour, integrity and loyalty are foreign concepts without any use in their internal treachery. When specifically asked today, the Leader of the Government in the Senate could not tell us why for any policy reason the Prime Minister was removed. And of course the Deputy Prime Minister was removed and the Leader of the Government in the Senate was removed. The three highest positions in the land were all removed last night. When asked what was the policy reason for this manoeuvre, no answer was provided, no rationale was proffered whatsoever. I wonder why that might be. It is a pretty simple answer because there is no answer. There is no policy rationale for the wholesale slaughter of the leadership and cabinet members last night.

Those changes last night had nothing whatsoever to do with the welfare of the Australian people. Those changes last night had nothing to do with a new policy direction for this nation. The changes last night were all about Labor desperately trying to preserve themselves. Of itself, Labor's turmoil is irrelevant other than Labor is supposed to be the government of our great nation. Labor's new team's approach is revenge on those within and attack on Mr Abbott without—personalised, non-stop, ugly negativity.

They have no first-term agenda or record to run on. Why? Because they sacked their first-term Prime Minister, remember. So let us turn to the second term. Well, they sacked their second-term Prime Minister as well. So what is their policy going to be as they lead in, asking the Australian people to endorse them for a third term? Well, we have the first-term Prime Minister that we sacked for incompetence returning to you to deliver a third-term government, a third-term government solely built on revenge on those within and attack on Mr Abbott. I simply say to the Australian people, there is an alternative, it is a genuine alternative—it is a 50-page plan of real solutions for the problems being faced by the Australian people.

Might I also say that with this change of the deckchairs comes the real risk of the destruction of documents, on which Mr Rudd has form from whilst he was with the Queensland government. So I table a letter written by myself to the Prime Minister requesting a guarantee that certain documents deliberately withheld by the former Prime Minister and Mr Shorten will be preserved, especially given the Australian Information Commissioner's preliminary view that the documents appear to be official documents despite the Prime Minister's office trying to assert to the contrary—documents that go to ministerial integrity for the former Prime Minister, the Minister for Foreign Affairs and the Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations. We will be watching the actions of this government very carefully in that particular space.

But the Australian people simply deserve better. Seven cabinet ministers were destroyed last night.

An opposition senator: Eight, now.

Eight, now. The tally goes up. Before that, Minister Ferguson was destroyed and Senator Kim Carr was destroyed. The list goes on. This is a dysfunctional government, more interested in itself—more interested in the internecine warfare within the Labor Party—than in delivering good government to the Australian people.

The Australian people are entitled to expect better from their government. Simply recycling the first-term failure as the front man for the third-term attempt will not cut the mustard, nor should it. Until the Labor Party can explain the policy rationale for the change, it is obvious there is no real, genuine change. (Time expired)