Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to questions without notice asked today.

I just cannot help but make comment about Minister Abetz's answer to me when I asked him about the leadership qualms and what support the Prime Minister has. He said something about me being the only one who seems to be talking about it. I do not know what planet Senator Abetz has been on lately, but, crikey, that is all we have heard about for nearly the last 18 months—it has been absolutely unbelievable. It is incredible. This side of the chamber even had a leadership spill, and they said it was just gossip columnists. I never saw Dennis Shanahan from The Australian as a mad left-wing gossip columnist. But the leadership is all we have heard about since February this year. They can hang their heads really low, but they actually had a leadership spill. In all the history of leaderships spills in this nation, who would have thought that the Prime Minister would have beaten a vacant chair 61 votes to 39! They are an absolute embarrassment. I keep looking at those opposite, but they will not look me in the eye. This is all we hear about. This government is an absolute shambles.

As this mob found out, it is very easy when you are in opposition, but once you get into government you actually have to govern; you have to do things. It was all right being in opposition, when they could just make the stupid announcements and the stupid statements that they did for the six-year tenure of the last government. To go to even more questions that we need to ask, I want to relate a couple of quotes to the Senate. The first is from August 2009, from the Prime Minister, who at the time was the Leader of the Opposition. He said, 'We can be grown-up government in a way that our opponents just can't.' Okay, they can be grown-ups. In June 2010, Mr Scott Morrison—sorry, I do not know what seat he is from—tweeted that 'Labor leadership chatter is all about a government sacking itself for its own poor performance.' All we get in chatter now, through Twitter and through the newspapers, is about that lot over there. No-one is talking about the Labor Party; it is all about this lot in government. How quickly they forget. In August 2010, Mr Abbott said:

I think leadership is knowing what you want to achieve and then purposefully and sensibly taking steps to achieve it, remembering always that you have got to bring people with you—

sorry, I am trying not to laugh—

if you are seeking to be a successful political leader.

Anyone who goes through a ballot with an empty chair and still leaks 39 votes—it is just incredible.

The worst part is that this lot over here say it is just Twitter chatter and gossip columnists. The reason they are being written about, the reason they are talking about themselves, is that we know that there are a significant number of that lot on that side of the chamber, and in the other house on the government benches, that are talking to reporters. They are actually feeding the reporters. Reporters do not make this up. Reporters do not sit there and think, 'How can I be mischievous and make up allegations of a leadership challenge?'

I will tell you what is even better about this, Mr Deputy President—it is not better; it is an absolute embarrassment of our nation—they imploded after about three months of winning government. They have been an absolute disaster and embarrassment for this nation. They cannot look me in the eye. Have a look at them. None of them can. They are looking down pretending to be reading. The best part, which I am absolutely loving about this, is that, in the chatter coming through the papers, they are actually naming who they are going to kill off. They are actually naming who the rising stars are.