Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of all answers to opposition questions in question time today.

In my contribution on this motion, I want to focus on Senator Abetz's answer to my question in relation to the budget. For weeks now, we have seen Mr Abbott and Mr Hockey bullying the Senate over the budget. They have insisted that the Senate must roll over and support their budget of broken promises. They have demanded that the Senate go along with their cuts to schools, their cuts to hospitals. They demanded that the Senate pass their new GP tax, pass their tax hikes on petrol, pass their cuts to pensions and pass their cuts to the benefits for the most vulnerable people in our community.

This government, this Prime Minister and this Treasurer have abused Labor for having the temerity to stand up for low- and middle-income Australians. They have abused Labor for defending this chamber's role as a house of review. They have demanded instead that the Senate act as a rubber-stamp. After all this bullying and blustering, what happened when the government's very first budget came on for debate in this place? The first government speaker stood up and opposed the bill. The first government speaker on the first budget bill of the first budget of this government, stood up and opposed the bill. In fact, Senator Macdonald not only opposed the bill but also had a spray against the Prime Minister's paid parental leave scheme for millionaires.

The second government speaker in this debate, Senator Bernardi, stood up and also opposed the government's bill. Senator Bernardi Senator Bernardi said:

I regret that this my first opportunity to have a conversation about these tax rates with members of my own party, but on principle I simply am unable to support this.

It is now five weeks since the budget and Senator Bernardi, a prominent government backbencher, has not even been able to have a conversation with Prime Minister, the Treasurer or Senator Cormann about his concerns. In fact, we had to wait until the seventh speaker in the debate before this government could find one of its own senators who was willing to support the bill. It was the seventh speaker in the debate before there was a government senator prepared to stand up and support the Tax Laws Amendment (Temporary Budget Repair Levy) Bill 2014. Congratulations to Senator Boyce for towing the line. The fact that it took seven speakers before a government senator spoke in favour of this budget bill says it all. It is not only Labor standing up against the government's broken promises; now the government's own backbenchers are breaking ranks over this unfair budget.

This morning's events must be unprecedented in recent Australian political history because the first government senators to speak on the first budget bill broke ranks. What I say is this: they did so because they know this is a budget littered with broken promises. It is a bad budget, it is an unfair budget and it is a budget littered with broken promises. If the government's own backbenchers will not support Mr Abbott's budget, why should the Australian people? If the government's own backbenchers do not trust the Prime Minister, why should the Australian people trust him? Because what we saw today from the government's own backbenchers is that they do not trust this Prime Minister's judgement. And if they will not, why should the Australian people? We know from the broken promises in this budget that this is a government that treats the Australian people with contempt. We also know that it treats its own backbenchers with contempt, in light of Senator Bernardi's contribution to this chamber that he had not had the opportunity to raise his concerns previously about the tax measures the Senate was discussing.

Let us recall who Senator Bernardi is. He is one of the leading figures in the Liberal Party's hard-line conservative faction. He was a key player in bringing down Malcolm Turnbull and installing Mr Abbott as Liberal leader in 2009, and he was Mr Abbott's own parliamentary secretary in opposition. Yet now it appears the door has been slammed in his face.

This is a government that cannot even organise government speakers on its first budget bill to support the government. It is a government with a budget in disarray, and the reason this budget is unravelling before our eyes is because it is deeply unfair. Let us remember that this budget is deeply unfair. It will change Australian society for the worse because it is a fundamental breach of faith with the Australian people. (Time expired)