Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today we've heard the most confused and inconsequential defence of a minister in the Morrison government who should have gone yesterday and must go today. We saw the Prime Minister, all this week, defend the member for Hume. Today in the Senate, Senator Cormann and Senator Birmingham gave wholly unconvincing accounts. Apparently, this scandal is the Labor Party's fault. Apparently, it's okay to ring the commissioner of police in New South Wales about an active police investigation. The commissioner of police, as you've said before, is your mate, so you get on the blower to the commissioner of police in New South Wales to sort out the details.

Today in the Senate, Senator Cormann dodged the question about whether the government and the Prime Minister were going to provide the transcript or other records of that conversation. It must be provided today if there is going to be any shred of credibility left with this government. The government is loose with the truth and doesn't have a plan for the real issues that confront Australians. Today and tomorrow, this is a government that wants to impose upon Australian workers a bill cutely entitled 'ensuring integrity'. Integrity? These people wouldn't know integrity if it bit them in the face. Who is this bloke, the member for Hume, Mr Taylor? He's had a golden run into the parliament. He is the square-jawed son of the squattocracy and had the finest boarding school education and university education that money can buy. A silver spoon doesn't touch the sides of the level of privilege, entitlement and unwarranted expectations that surrounded this bloke's rails run into the Commonwealth parliament. The National Party, or what remains of the National Party in this country, even stepped aside to gift this bloke from Woollahra a country seat. What craven characters they are!

He was described on his way into the parliament as having Kennedy-esk good looks. People on that side of the joint said he was the hope of the side—a future Prime Minister. Somebody said—I bet it wasn't Senator Fierravanti-Wells—that he was 'blisteringly intelligent'. How the mighty have fallen! In the year of his pre-selection, records show that he made a $155,000 donation to the Liberal Party in New South Wales. Parliamentary life can be tougher than people think on the way in here! All he has done since he has come to this place has been for personal advantage, personal advancement and wilful ideological follies. It has all come to a shuddering halt.

This born-to-rule sense of entitlement means that he is a weak link in a weak government. What is his record? It's a record of entitlement, poor judgement, low capacity and the relentless pursuit of self-interest. In October he was out there claiming incorrectly to the parliament that Australian emissions were going down when they were going up. He has already been exposed in this parliament for advocating to the then Minister for the Environment about a property that he part-owned. An investigation of land clearing in endangered grasslands was commenced about the property that he partly owned. What did he do? Well, he did what one college boy does for another college boy: he picked up the phone and he went for a meeting. I'm sure it was brandy and cigars and 'What can we do about this, old chap?' The bunyip aristocracy in New South Wales and the seat of Hume lives on. Some farmers resent regulation of land clearing and some don't, but the law applies equally—unless you're the member for Hume.

This week's calamity is about forged, fraudulent documents that were leaked to The Daily Telegraph by this minister, in a way that he cannot account for, in order to damage an elected official in the City of Sydney. The New South Wales Police has commenced an investigation. He must stand down today.

Question agreed to.