Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave for a short statement of no more than five minutes.

Leave granted.

Colleagues, do you know what we've just seen? It's the total, complete and utter hypocrisy of the Australian Labor Party. When we were in government, what we'd we say to the Labor Party was: 'We need to sit all night in order to get through this bill. Are you happy that we sit till four or five in the morning?' Do you know what used to happen then? Senators Wong and Gallagher would go off their brains. They would say, 'How dare you guillotine a bill through?' even though we were going to sit through the night to allow you to debate it and to allow you to ask questions on it. But guess what. Now that they are in government, there is no more pretence. They do not care about transparency, they do not care about democracy, and the last thing they care about is the Australian people.

For the benefit of those in the gallery, let me tell you what just happened. The government just put forward 22 bills that are going to go through this chamber with little or no debate. Twenty-two pieces of legislation that will fundamentally affect the lives of the Australian people are now going to be guillotined through without debate. That is the height of hypocrisy—when a government continues to tell the people that they actually believe in transparency.

Colleagues, do you know what's worse? Do you want to know how they got the numbers? They did a dirty deal with the Australian Greens. Guess what, the deal is this: it's the committee that basically states, 'We hate gas in Australia, we want to destroy gas in Australia, and the last thing we want is the Australian people having gas as a form of energy.' That is the committee that they basically got up this afternoon. The Australian Labor Party have basically sided with the Australian Greens to say, 'Yes, let's have a select committee into the killing of gas in Australia.'

We would have been happy to actually guillotine the fuel bills through today after a period of time in which we, on behalf of the Australian public, were able to interrogate them. Any suggestion that we were not prepared to work with the government to ensure the timely passage of the fuel bills today is complete, total and utter untruth. Instead the Labor Party have sided—gosh, they love to talk about us siding with people! Yet again what we do see is the two parties of the left—the left and then the so far left they're actually lying down—teaming up to put forward a select committee into the one vital fuel in Australia: gas. 'We hate gas, we want to tax gas more, but, worse than that, we never want to see gas as a form of energy in this country.'

As I said—22 bills. Colleagues, just remember, though, that this is the party that went to both the 2022 election and the 2025 election saying that they will be the most transparent government in the history of Australia. Sadly, as we know, this place is now run like a shop floor—nothing more and nothing less. You tell the little unionists that you don't want to hear from to shut up. The big union over there—they dictate the terms of what goes on in this place. Well, guess what. You might think you dictate the terms, but that will never stop us coming into this place and standing up, day after day, on behalf of the Australian people. Guess what. After the last five weeks, the Australian people, quite frankly, know that they have now been let down by this government—a government that has had its head in the sand when it comes to the fuel crisis we now see in Australia, a government that had the audacity to blame the Australian people for topping up one or two times too many.

What's worse, colleagues, is a prime minister today that said that Bunnings had run out of jerry cans. Do you know what? Bunnings issued a statement saying, 'That was actually not true, Prime Minister, we haven't run out of jerry cans.' The misinformation and the disinformation, frankly, and the misleading of the Australian people—this government know no bounds. Again, shame on you for guillotining through this parliament, with little to no debate, 22 bills that are going to affect the lives of the Australian people. Sadly, this Senate will not have time to interrogate the effect on them. Quite frankly, God help the Australian people because, after the last five weeks, I think the effect is going to be pretty bad.