Ross Cadell (NSW, National Party, Shadow Minister for Water) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answers given by ministers to all questions without notice asked by coalition senators today.

Here we have the government today, again, with more of the same. What we are talking about is their response to fuel: 'Don't go out and get fuel.' We're out of jerry cans all across Australia, apparently! But we're not. It's, 'Any answer will do,' on this matter. 'Any answer will do—we'll just chuck it out because we want to be seen to be doing something. This is what we're going to get out there.'

I must say I do want to congratulate the government on fixing the longevity of the particle board in kitchens that I raised earlier, because we're going to run out of polypipe well before we will ever before we run out of kitchen stuff. We have a business in Newcastle today—I was out there; I was talking—who have 20 electricians on site. They are cleaning the yard and their equipment because there is no polypipe to go out and do jobs—no construction work getting done. What we have is slabs not getting laid, because the plumbers can't put in the underground infrastructure to build this.

The other question I note, from another senator today, was a question about housing approvals. It wasn't housing completions or housing starts; it was about approvals—because we can't get the polypipe, we can't get the equipment, we can't get the particle board and we can't get anything that is petroleum based into the construction industry to actually build the homes. That's why there was a question about approvals today. But here we are. We're talking about everything else in this place.

What we're really talking about is this government making Australia weaker through poor decisions. We're talking about the things that they do to look good out there in the public but not actually improve Australia when we get there. What a great way we have to solve the glue issue on policy—not even by getting a house far enough along, by building a slab or by building the stuff to get it better. We deserve better. We've got prices going up all over the place. We have all this sort of stuff. But what we had was a discussion that they ran away with at a million miles an hour about increasing the size of the parliament. Sure, we may have briefed people. We may have briefed the press. A minister may have gone to the Press Club and talked about how all great Labor prime ministers have increased the size of parliament, but we'll run away from that today. We'll just run away. We had gaslighting people like no tomorrow, because that is what this government does.

We aren't talking about increasing the size of parliament—$600 million worth of expense. We're pretending that never happened. We're pretending the Prime Minister didn't say we're running out of jerry cans, because apparently we're not running out of jerry cans and that's being backed up by everything else. All we go through is deflect—it's like dodgeball. What is it? 'Dodge, duck, dip, dive and dodge' are the things to get through dodgeball. That's what we're doing on this issue. We are avoiding the substantive things of this issue because we know the real consequences are out there in the public. We see the issues going on, but we talk about these side matters because they are. When you get caught talking on a side matter, like increasing the size of parliament—$600 million more for us, for this class, to continue over the future—we pretend. We run away when we get caught deflecting.

It is time for real answers. It is time for real solutions. Australia is a strong energy company, a strong energy country, but we have made decisions over years and years going back 20 years to make us weak. All we do in this parliament—so many people have sat in the corner like a cuck as we've made decisions to make this a weak country, and it is no longer. Australia and Australians cannot get screwed over by sitting back and doing nothing. It is time to harness what we have. It is time to free what we can be and be strong—to do anything more than make decisions as we go forward—and make Australia strong, so we can make decisions in our best interest, not anyone else's but Australia's best interests.

We are weak. So let's get back to that sovereignty position. Let's make decisions that make Australia a stronger and better country so we can help those that need help, so we can help those in Australia that need our help and so we can make decisions based on making Australia a better country. (Time expired)