Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Treasury and Finance) Share this | Hansard source

I reject the assertions made by Senator O'Neill in her five-minute contribution, for a number of reasons. She started by denigrating the women on our front bench, the outstanding women we have on our front bench.

Senator Wong interjecting—

She did. She said there are so few. To my left and right, we have absolutely outstanding contributors on our front bench, male and female. Some of those outstanding female contributors include, of course, Minister Payne, who the question was directed to, and Minister Cash, who cops nothing but abuse from Senator Cameron and others every time she gets up. He has a history of abusing her. The Labor Party never does or says anything about that. The Labor Party tolerates that kind of abuse. It also comes from Senator McKim, from the Greens. We heard it again today—the constant abuse of and yelling at the outstanding Minister Cash, Minister Ruston, Minister McKenzie and Minister Reynolds.

We have some outstanding contributors, and they do a great job advocating for the cause of our nation. They are doing an outstanding job and they often do it despite the abuse that is hurled at them by members of the Labor Senate team and by members of the Greens Senate team. We don't hear leaders within the Labor Party or the Greens doing anything about that. We've seen some of the disgraceful behaviour, particularly from Senator Cameron, in that regard.

We get lectured by the Labor Party, who get so much of their funding from that aggressive, misogynist organisation, the CFMEU, whose treatment of woman is disgraceful. Senator Pratt smiles, but we don't smile at some of the disgraceful behaviour that has been conducted in the name of senior CFMEU officials—for example, Luke Collier, who was defended so strongly, with many questions asked on his behalf by Labor senators, such as Doug Cameron. But the Labor Party takes money from that disgraceful organisation, despite their abuse of women, despite their aggressive behaviour towards women, despite the violence that has occurred to women by some of the senior officials, including those who have been convicted for that behaviour.

Opposition senators interjecting—

They're female public servants seeking to do their jobs, whom the CFMEU treats with absolute disdain; with absolutely no respect. So the Labor Party should be looking in the mirror when it comes to some of these issues.

Senator O'Neill also claims that we're not getting on with the job and delivering. Well, nothing could be further from the truth. We need only look at the Australian economy, with a 3.5 per cent growth rate and with the over one million jobs that have been created under this Liberal-National government's watch. We have created the conditions so that business, small and large, in this country can get on and employ more people, become more profitable and invest more in their businesses. More than a million more Australians today have the opportunity for work than they did when Labor left office, and they left us a failing economy and a failing budget.

We're bringing the budget back to surplus, despite the opposition of the Labor Party and the Greens, and we're doing it whilst delivering record investments—not just in health, not just in education, not just in infrastructure but also, of course, in the important defence of our nation. That mob over there not only threw open the borders when it came to border protection but also ran down the defence budget in the most reckless way to the lowest level of spending since the Second World War. That was under the Labor Party. We've restored it. We've increased it year on year with a defence construction program, with defence infrastructure, with a defence build that will set this nation up. We're doing it, delivering for the economy and getting people into work. Under this government we have the lowest proportion of Australians of working age on welfare in a generation. We are very, very proud of that record. It stands in contrast to the Labor Party's record. If they were to come back we know that their $200 billion tax hit, their hit on the family home with everyone's values going down and their hit on renters through the negative gearing policy would destroy our economy. That's what we'll be arguing for right up until the election next year, whenever that is held.