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

Thank you very much, Mr President. Some of my colleagues wanted me to come back into this place and again place on record that I agreed with Senator Brandis so that they could be assured that I did actually say that in this place yesterday. I agreed with Senator Brandis when he made the comment on air that he thought that the Queensland LNP were 'very, very mediocre'. Just to assure my colleagues that I really did say it, I have put it on the record again.

If it were just a matter of me putting that on the record and taking on face value what the Leader of the Government in the Senate actually said about the Liberal National Party of Queensland, that would be fine. But the reality is that this government is very, very, very, very mediocre—at best. I would have thought that someone like the Leader of the Government in the Senate would at least reflect on his own contribution to this government and to this chamber before even he was willing to pass judgement on his coalition partners and his own party in Queensland. Because of all the backflips, failures and let-downs of this government, I would not be alone in saying that the performance of the Turnbull government is in fact very, very mediocre at best.

The Turnbull government are truly the gift that keeps on giving. They cannot help themselves. Week after week since they have been re-elected, they have stuffed things up. It does not matter what area of policy you want to talk about; it is just the reality of life with this government. We have people in the House of Representatives—the other place—who actually vote against their own government. In fact, it was a minister in the Turnbull government who voted, and who had her colleagues vote, against the government. We have also seen, time and time again, a very desperate Prime Minister grabbing thought bubbles as they pass by, around a whole range of policy areas. The problem is that, when he grabs those thought bubbles, they burst—and that happens before they even hit the ground.

So, if the Leader of the Government in the Senate casts aspersions about the ability of his colleagues in Queensland, I would have thought that the government would have a look at their own performance. We know that the Turnbull government ran around the country before the election and during the election campaign chanting 'jobs and growth'. In fact, as I have said previously in this place, the former Liberal member for the federal seat of Bass would have his staff gather around and do their daily chant, 'jobs and growth', trying to motivate themselves. Not once have they actually delivered anything when it comes to having a strategy, a plan, for the economic future of this country. They have done nothing when it comes to creating jobs or to giving the platform and the framework so that jobs, very important jobs, can be established in this country.

What we found during that election campaign was that there was a lot of noise but not much else. We know that the Prime Minister promised so much to the Australian people and that he has, in fact, delivered nothing. He has delivered nothing but disappointment, but we know that he is very capable of doing whatever it takes to ensure that he keeps his own job. He is certainly—almost on a daily basis, with all his backflips and his burst bubbles—doing whatever he has to do to keep the right wing under control. He is doing what he needs to do to keep his own job. That has been the Prime Minister's priority since 2 July: to do whatever it takes to keep his own job.

But we also know that his big economic plan is all about giving the big end of town, big business, $50 billion in tax cuts. That is their priority—nothing for the Australian people. What we also know, and what demonstrates how mediocre their performance is, is that we are almost at the end of the parliamentary sitting year. What have we already seen about the sitting pattern of next year? That they are doing everything that they can to keep out of the parliament, because they know that, when they sit in the parliament—in the House of Representatives and here—they have to face the scrutiny of the opposition. Of course, when the government is in trouble, there is always a telltale sign, because they cut the number of weeks that they sit, and there has not been a better champion of that than Mr Turnbull himself.

I understand that this week the National Party called a panicked meeting, lasting for two hours, which I would have thought was an extremely long time for the National Party to meet on Monday night, because there were issues around the fact that they had—what was it?—three cabinet ministers who failed to support the cabinet decision on the Adler gun.