Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a tawdry display of petty partisan politics the Senate has just been subjected to by Senator Watt, allegedly a leading light of the Australian Labor Party, coming as he does from the state of Queensland, which gave the Labor Party—what was the primary vote at the last election?

This motion is not about the fires; it is about leadership. Leadership is the ability to direct and motivate others to achieve individual and team goals. And, can I say, Mr Morrison delivered by the bucket-load in relation to that on 18 May. When the Australian Labor Party thought that they were going to sail into office, virtually unopposed, the simple fact is that Mr Morrison was able to ensure that individuals won their seats and that the people of Australia, in listening to the messages that he had on offer, in comparison to the Labor Party, switched their vote from that which Labor thought was going to be theirs over to the coalition. That is why the Australian Labor Party continues to sit on the opposition benches.

Now, let's be very clear: Senator Watt just delivered 10 minutes of diatribe against the Prime Minister, saying what a failure the Prime Minister is. In that 10 minutes, not a single nanosecond was spent on what the Labor Party might have done in the event that they were in office. There was no alternative to offer the Australian people. Of course, when it comes to the specific issue of fires, who is responsible for fire management? Who is responsible for land management? Who is responsible for fuel reduction burns in the forests? It is the state governments.

Who is responsible for asking the federal government to get involved in these issues? It is the specific state governments, and they have all agreed that everything which was asked of the federal government in the circumstances of the fires was, in fact, delivered.

But this motion, as it's put before us, is a general statement alleging the Prime Minister's ongoing failure to show leadership. Well, I knew this Prime Minister before he was Prime Minister. He didn't show any leadership at all, did he, on border protection, something that Labor failed to deliver on time and time again! Mr Morrison delivered on border protection, showing leadership, going against what the Australian Labor Party said. Labor said it couldn't be done; Mr Morrison stood up and delivered for the Australian people. That is what leadership is—doing what is right in circumstances when everybody else is throwing stones at you, something that the left-wing media in this country and the Australian Labor Party are so very good at.

Of course, the leadership that is required in this nation is not to throw rocks—as the Australian Labor Party do—because that is not leadership. It is to set out an alternative. And so why didn't Senator Watt spend a nanosecond of his speech telling us about the alternative Labor agenda? Because he can't. Where do they stand on negative gearing? Where do they stand on franked dividends? Where do they stand in relation to coalmining in Australia? They had their leader go up to Queensland and say, 'I support coalmining' and then go down to Victoria and say, 'I don't support coalmining'—and then they wonder why the Australian people say there is a lack of leadership and direction within the Australian Labor Party. Can I say that those people that might be listening in to this debate would be a lot more interested in hearing Senator Watt and the Australian Labor Party telling us about their alternative policies: what they would do if they were in government, and why people should vote for them because their alternative is so much better. But no, all it was was the typical vacuous vitriol that the Labor Party are so good at throwing across the chamber. They are incapable of providing a genuine alternative to the people of Australia.

Let's be very clear: the leadership of Mr Morrison has protected our borders, helped us get our budget back into shape in such a manner that we are now able to face the elements of the fires, a coronavirus and those curve balls that are thrown up for us from time to time. And the resilience of our budget is courtesy of budget management, which was very much part of Mr Morrison's portfolio prior to becoming Prime Minister. And now, as Prime Minister, there has been a legacy of leadership by Mr Morrison that the Labor Party simply drool over, because they don't know what leadership is. Mr Shorten was their great leader—dumped, pushed aside—and now it's Mr Albanese, without any vision for the future, without any alternative to provide to the Australian people. The great authority that Senator Watt seeks to quote is a person who is on the public record as saying that, as a journalist, she had lied and made up sources. That is the sort of person that Senator Watt has to rely on to try to give a single feather to his wing—but, can I tell you, that single feather won't get this motion to fly, especially when it is such a stripped feather in relation to questions of integrity. When someone themselves admits that that is how they operated as a journalist, and you then seek to quote them as a great authority—that's indicative of how little information and how little support there was for the proposition that Senator Watt is seeking to put to this chamber this evening.

The simple fact is that the Prime Minister has shown leadership on every single occasion, on every portfolio that he has held, and, what's more, his leadership has been supported by the Australian people in the only poll that counts, and that was on 18 May. We saw the sinking faces of the Labor people. My good friend Senator Wong and others who were doing the commentary started the night with a big grin, especially the ABC commentators looking forward to a Labor win. Of course, by the end of the evening, they were looking extremely glum and upset.