Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You don't grow an economy stronger by changing Prime Minister every couple of years, and that's exactly what we've done. What the question from Senator McAllister did was highlight a horror week for this government. We got an unbelievable response from Senator Cormann, the government's Senate leader. This was his quote. He said that Australians 'know what they are getting under us'. That just inspires me to look at their record. When we look at their record, we know they have had three prime ministers. We know they are onto their third Treasurer. We know they've already had two deputy prime ministers, and there will possibly be a third by the end of next week. This is their record when it comes to who has been their leaders—Prime Minister, Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister. You can't possibly provide the leadership that this country is looking for when you keep changing leader so regularly and keep changing the key personnel so regularly. We've suffered from that. We understand. That is why last weekend, under the Labor leadership of Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek, we clocked up five years of stable leadership. That is the real contrast between what Labor are providing and what we've seen from this rabble on the other side.

The consequences of having such instability in the government are actually ones that go to policy dysfunction. Let's have a look at the list of policy dysfunctions that this government have been responsible for. We know that, after being in government for five years, they still don't have an energy policy. They worked on a national energy guarantee for almost 12 months and they still couldn't settle that in the party room. They even promoted the person responsible for it, Josh Frydenberg, to Treasurer as a result, even though he couldn't get a policy on energy through the party room. We know that they couldn't settle on an education policy. They were at war with the Catholic sector for so long because they were short-changing them. It took, again, a change in personnel, a change in the ministry, before they could attempt to resolve that.

We also know about their issues with accountability and decision making. They decided to hand out almost half a billion dollars to a private foundation—the Great Barrier Reef Foundation—with no due process, no tender process. It was decided in a matter of days after a meeting between then Prime Minister Turnbull and now Treasurer Frydenberg. This is the type of government that they have been running. We also know that they have no climate change policy and no credibility when it comes to climate change. So, on key policy areas, there is just a level of dysfunction around this government because they change leaders so often. Because they change the key personnel so often, this is the result that you get.

Now let's look at what they've achieved this week. They obviously said to themselves on the weekend: 'We've got the Wentworth by-election on Saturday. We need a big effort in parliament. We've got to do really well and give our candidate there a platform.' What did they do on the first day? They came in here and voted for a white supremacist slogan. That was on day one. We know that they subsequently backtracked on that. We also know that they ended 70 years of bipartisanship over an important foreign policy matter. These are the types of decisions that they are willing to make because they are so desperate in Wentworth. They're willing to trash what has been a combined effort between both parties of government to ensure that we do our best in terms of foreign policy. They were prepared to trash that overnight, with very little consultation.

As a result of that, they put an important—probably Australia's most important—economic relationship at risk. They are so desperate in Wentworth that this is the type of behaviour we are seeing. We also know that they backflipped on the GST policy, and we know that they offended Australia's Pacific neighbours, with the Minister for the Environment, at the same time. You've got to say to yourself that it is only Thursday; there is still more time before the Wentworth by-election for them to make more decisions that are going to cost them votes in that by-election.

We know that part of the reason they were so desperate on Monday in terms of voting for that white supremacist slogan is that they still don't know how to handle Senator Hanson—whether to fight her or whether to coddle her. They came in on Monday and decided to coddle her on that motion. Then they turned up on Tuesday and said, 'No, we regret that; we're going to vote against it.' We also know that they're in such conflict over trying to get the result they need in Wentworth that they're willing to trash so many policy credentials that Australia has built over time. So, it is very evident that the chaos and dysfunction, the continuing change in leaders on the other side, is leading to a chaotic government, and the Australian people deserve so much better.