Murray Watt (Queensland, 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 Chisholm today relating to the Morrison Government.

Now that I look at the words I've just said, I think I'm being extremely generous to Senator Fifield in describing his response to Senator Chisholm as an answer because this is the question that several government ministers have now found impossible to answer over the course of this week and, in fact, over the last couple of weeks, ever since they deposed, knifed, killed off—however you want to put it—former Prime Minister Mr Turnbull. More than two weeks have now passed since Senator Cormann, Senator Fifield, Senator Cash and a number of other government frontbenchers knifed former Prime Minister Turnbull. Over two weeks have passed since then and not one of them has yet been able to explain to the Australian people or to this chamber why they took the actions they did.

Senator Reynolds interjecting—

I can hear Senator Reynolds over there. She at least had the decency to stick by former Prime Minister Turnbull, and a number of her colleagues did as well, but not one of the ministers whom we've asked these questions of has yet been able to give an answer as to why they thought it was so important for the government—or for the country, more importantly—that former Prime Minister Turnbull be killed off.

Senator Cormann has laboured through a number of answers over the course of this week, regaling us with stories about how the Westminster conventions work. I can assure him that most of us, having come to the Senate, have a little bit of an idea about that and we don't need a civics lesson from Senator Cormann. Senator Fifield took the same measures today, referring to Westminster conventions and how the Liberal Party works, and proceeded to explain to Senator McKenzie how the coalition works and how the National Party get no say in who the Liberal Party leader will be.

The reason he did that was that Senator McKenzie on Q&A last night made the embarrassing admission that she had absolutely no idea why former Prime Minister Turnbull was knifed by the Liberal leader. We have not one government minister here able to explain why Mr Turnbull was knifed. The Deputy Leader of the National Party has no idea why Mr Turnbull was knifed. Is it any wonder that the Australian public are scratching their heads, struggling to understand why this government took the measure it did of killing off yet another Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, whom they all regarded as a massive disappointment but whom none disliked or hated in the same way they do former Prime Minister Abbott.

There's only one person, in fact, in this entire debate within the government who has carried himself with any decency, and that's the leader of the government in the House of Representatives, Mr Pyne. I'm sure members opposite will agree with my characterisation of Mr Pyne as a man of decency. Mr Pyne has at least had the good grace to admit that the question as to why so many government ministers decided it was important to kill off Mr Turnbull is a good question, and he has encouraged people to ask that question of those who took the knife to Mr Turnbull, which is exactly what we have been doing over the course of this week. Probably the best answer I've seen so far, or attempted answer that I've seen so far, from a government minister for why they had to kill off Mr Turnbull was from the new Prime Minister himself, Mr Morrison. This morning he was in the media trying to explain to people, 'We've been very good at the what but people want to know the why.'