Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was thinking that the remarks of Kelly O'Dwyer, the Minister for Jobs and Industrial Relations, may have been a little unfair when she said in the Liberals' crisis meeting last night that the Liberals are now viewed as homophobic, anti women, and climate change deniers, but then Senator Abetz got up and made a contribution, and I realised she had absolutely nailed it, because I think we all know the kinds of people in her own party that she's actually talking about.

What a day in the Liberal Party and what a day in Canberra. As I was coming down to Canberra on Sunday for this sitting week, I thought to myself, 'Well, I know for sure that the government is going to have some kind of debacle over the course of the next week.' I just wasn't sure what it would be. I didn't have to wait long. I only had to wait a couple of days to see what the debacle of this sitting week would be. Then again, I suppose the week is still early. We might see more. Just in one day, what we've seen from the government is the former foreign minister, Julie Bishop, out in the media saying that the government should agree to a national energy guarantee and should reach an agreement with the Labor Party on energy policy, in exactly the way that we have attempted to reach an agreement with this government for the last two or three years. So Julie Bishop has heard the message out of the Victorian election and knows that people want to see some action on climate change from her government. We also read this morning that, under the former Prime Minister, Mr Turnbull, the government was about to introduce a national integrity commission. Of course, he was then deposed and the idea of an integrity commission was deposed with him. That was all before we got to morning tea, and then we didn't have long to wait before we saw the spectacular resignation of the member for Chisholm, Julia Banks.

Julia Banks absolutely crucified her party with the things that she had to say about them. She pointed to the fact that they have completely lost touch with what the people of Australia want to see from their government and have become completely obsessed with themselves. She also very much pointed the finger at the 'reactionary and regressive right wing' of her party—those are her words—who talk to themselves rather than listen to the people of Australia. So, whether it be Julie Bishop on the one hand, whether it be nobbling a national integrity commission on the other or whether it be the resignation of the member for Chisholm, Julia Banks, this government is in even more disarray than it was this time yesterday. And that really is saying something.

Haven't coalition senators had a good day responding to all of these incidents? First we saw one of them quoted by the Herald Sun as saying—excuse my language—'the effing place is falling apart'. I think that's a pretty accurate summary of the way this government is operating. Then during question time I noticed on Twitter that one coalition senator texted Alice Workman from BuzzFeed, telling her, 'I hope you're enjoying the dying days of the Abbott-Turnbull-Morrison government.' I don't say this to gloat, because I think all Australians are absolutely dismayed by what they see from their government day in, day out here in Canberra. The truth is that this is a government that has stopped governing. They have stopped listening to what the people of Australia want to see from their government, and all they can do is fight amongst themselves, text journalists, speak to journalists about how embarrassed they are by their own government, all the time ignoring what it is that Australians want to see from them. The losers from this government's disarray are Australians themselves, and, as a senator from Queensland, I'm particularly concerned about what's happening to Queenslanders under this government.

I know for a fact that what Queenslanders want from this government is secure jobs and wages that are increasing. Instead, they get more casualisation, more labour hire and wages that are barely growing—the lowest we've ever seen on record. What Queenslanders want to see from this government is well-funded schools and hospitals. Instead, what they get are more and more cuts to schools and hospitals. Queenslanders want to see more investment in their TAFEs, in their training organisations and in their universities to make sure both young people and older mature-age workers get the skills that they need to be able to compete for the jobs in the future. What do they get from this government? Again, they get cuts to TAFE, cuts to training and cuts to universities. What Queenslanders want to see is a fair taxation system where millionaires and big business do pay their fair share. But what they get from this government is attempts to reduce the tax burden on the top end of town. This government is so divided and so distracted that it has completely lost touch with what Queenslanders and Australians want to see. The sooner we get to an election, the better.