Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance and the Public Service (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator Gallacher today relating to the Morrison Government.

I was wondering over the last day or so what could have possibly been my most favourite farcical moment, in the last sitting week, of the leadership debacle. I was wondering whether it was on the Tuesday morning, when former Prime Minister Turnbull invited the party room to the normal meeting and declared all positions vacant—not to give anyone an opportunity to contest that but to simply throw that open and ambush people, to find that he still had 35 people, from a standing start, who did not support his leadership. Or was it after that, after he actually won that vote on the Tuesday morning? Was my favourite farcical moment the offers of 100 per cent support by all the senior ministers both in this place and in the House of Representatives? Or was it the flipping of those ministers during the course of the next 24 hours, when those ministers that had just given their 100 per cent support then flipped their position and decided to support Peter Dutton? Or was my favourite farcical moment when Malcolm Turnbull actually set a rather high bar by saying that until he could see an absolute majority of Liberal Party members on paper—that being 43 names—he would not call another party room meeting?

I had to land here: my favourite farcical moment was when Warren Entsch, who wanted to support Malcolm Turnbull, gave the 43rd signature on the petition to get Malcolm Turnbull to call another party room meeting—even though he wanted to support Malcolm Turnbull. That had to be, for me, the most farcical moment of the whole lot. But he didn't give that 43rd vote because he wanted to support Peter Dutton. He didn't give that 43rd vote because he wanted to support Scott Morrison. He gave that 43rd vote because he remembered the treachery that Malcolm Turnbull himself had applied in the past, to Brendan Nelson.

All their problems do go back to this. It started right at the very beginning of this terrible, dysfunctional Liberal government, which we've now had for five-odd years. We remember that Howard lost his seat and resigned, and left them absolutely leaderless and rudderless even though everyone, including everyone on this side of the chamber, thought that Peter Costello, who had long sought the leadership mantle, would simply step into it. But, being the man that Peter Costello was, he decided, 'Nah, not going to be Prime Minister any time soon. I won't even put my hand up,' which allowed a battle between Brendan Nelson and Malcolm Turnbull. Brendan Nelson won that battle by 45 votes to Malcolm Turnbull's 42 votes, and Costello didn't even enter the ballot. That was in November 2007. In September 2008, challenger Turnbull defeated opposition leader Brendan Nelson by 41—the beginning of the treachery there. And, again, Costello, who was still in parliament at that time, didn't even enter the ballot.

Then we move to December 2009 and we have, again, another leadership ballot. Tony Abbott enters the race, Turnbull enters the race and Joe Hockey enters the race. I remember those days being just as farcical as the last sitting week around here. In the first round, Abbott got 35, Turnbull got 26 and Hockey got 23. In the second round, Abbott defeated opposition leader Turnbull by 42 to 41—one vote!

In February 2015 Prime Minister Abbott defeated the challenger, which was actually an empty chair, by 61 votes to 39. The empty chair did better than Peter Dutton did in his last round! We fast-forward to September 2015, and Malcolm Turnbull challenges Prime Minister Abbott and defeats him 54 votes to 44 votes.

Last Tuesday, in the last sitting week, Prime Minister Turnbull, with 48 votes, defeated challenger Dutton— (Time expired)