Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

You always know when you are touching a nerve when those on the other side come in and start interjecting. I love it because the reality is that what I am saying here today is what the Australian people already know. As I said earlier, former Prime Minister Tony Abbott has been in the UK talking to journalists, talking to conservatives and talking to anyone who will listen to him, saying that he will return to be the Prime Minister. Mr Turnbull, at the election, promised all sorts of things, but what has he actually delivered since he has been the Prime Minister of this country? He has presided over a second-rate NBN, which has gone from bad to ridiculous; an unfunded education sector; cuts to family payments that will leave many Australian families worse off; and continuous attacks on penalty rates.

I spoke before about the two bills. He is continuing to talk up and deliver what we know is his plan to privatise Medicare. We know they want to undermine Medicare. It is in their DNA; it is in their belief system that we should not have a universal health system in this country. We saw further evidence as the bills were laid on the table here today. We know they are underfunding the hospitals. I spoke yesterday about the crisis in Tasmania. Yet again at the Launceston General Hospital and the Royal Hobart Hospital, patients, elderly people in their nineties, are left waiting on the floor of accident and emergency for three days before they can have surgery. We also know that those on the other side are continuing, under Malcolm Turnbull, to increase the cost of pathology and diagnostic imaging. We know their plan for higher education is to introduce $100,000 degrees. The list goes on and on. But Australians do not want Mr Turnbull's excuses. Australians do not want his thought bubbles. They want Mr Turnbull to show some real leadership and start leading this country, not be hamstrung and tied up to the right-wing conservatives in his party on a whole range of issues. This country cannot be run by somebody who has no ability to lead his own caucus, let alone this country. (Time expired)