Chris Ketter (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister representing the Prime Minister (Senator Brandis) to a question without notice asked by Senator Chisholm today relating to the Queensland election.

Once again, we see in question time on display, on the other side of this chamber, a government in disarray. We see on the other side a government in disarray—perhaps in terminal disarray—and I think the results of the Queensland election paint a very stark picture. There is the principled approach taken by the Queensland Labor government and, in contrast to that, we see the hopeless division on the other side when it comes to critical issues that are important to the Australian people. I want to pay tribute to Premier Palaszczuk for her principled position of putting One Nation last and making it very, very clear that there would be no deals in relation to One Nation. This is quite different to the other side of politics, where Mr Nicholls put One Nation ahead in 49 seats. I think Mr Nicholls has paid the political price for that unprincipled position. I know that the Attorney-General in his response today indicated that to deal with One Nation is 'poison'. He's made that comment himself, and that is to his credit. However, in Queensland, we saw this flirting with One Nation—the deal with One Nation—for which I think a political price has been paid. As I understand it, we are now looking at Labor winning 47 to 48 seats across Queensland and the LNP suffering a 7.8 per cent reduction in their vote, ending up with 40 to 41 seats. Under the circumstances, this is a very good outcome.

The questions in question time today related to the comments from Mr Christensen, who's Senator Brandis's Queensland LNP colleague. He has quite clearly identified that there is a fault here with the Turnbull government, that the concern that One Nation voters are expressing comes out of the lack of direction and lack of leadership of the Turnbull government. We know that Mr Christensen himself, in his own electorate, has championed the concept of a banking royal commission. It's quite different when he comes to Canberra, of course, but he has made comments in support of a banking royal commission. He has also made comments in his electorate about supporting penalty rates and he has supported changes to the law which protect penalty rates. Again, these are two issues which put Mr Christensen and some of his Senate colleagues from the LNP against the leadership of this government. This is clearly what Mr Christenson is pointing to—that we're not seeing leadership from Mr Turnbull on these critically important issues for the Australian people, and this is feeding into the concern of voters.

When it comes to the issue of a banking royal commission, I reiterate the point that we have a government that's hopelessly divided on that particular point. In this place, we see Senator O'Sullivan and Senator Williams adopting a principled position of seeking to advance the cause of having a royal commission. They understand the pain that's been caused to ordinary Australians and ordinary Queenslanders in that area. They want to see a change there. But we're seeing steadfast support for the major banks by the Turnbull government, and the Australian people are very concerned about that.

On the issue of penalty rates, we know that low wages growth is one of the huge problems for our economy. In fact, the Treasurer himself has indicated that low wages growth is the greatest threat to our economy, but we see a government that, whilst making that point, is not prepared to lift a finger to stop the cuts to penalty rates that are going to occur and that will affect 700,000 workers across Australia. How can that help our economy if we're seeing the earning power of ordinary people, low-paid workers, being impacted? It's quite clear. Also, Senator Macdonald has been reported to say that the federal leadership doesn't appear to be terribly interested in what's going on in North Queensland. It's time for this government to wake up to itself. The people of Australia have already woken up to it.