Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I—

Ruth Webber (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

No!

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are not on the speakers list.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

It may surprise the others but I stand in a most non-adversarial way. Indeed, I rise to offer some advice to the Australian Labor Party and all I get are moans and groans before I even venture my advice. What I would like to say, for those who wish to stay around and hear it—Mr Deputy President, unfortunately, you are compelled to do so—is that today and yesterday in question time we had the very unusual circumstance of an opposition Labor Party focusing on a single issue. Their centrepiece was what they claim to have been a Liberal Party of Australia fundraiser at Kirribilli. Question after question was dedicated to this particular issue. Of course, the government batted them off quite easily by saying that advice from the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet was that it was a non-fundraising function which, based on full cost recovery, was quite acceptable. Therefore, that is our answer to that question.

For the last two days, as I said, the Labor Party have made this the central point of their attack on the government. I point this out to the opposition and offer my advice. I offer that advice because I spent many long, cold years in opposition. I know what it is like to be in opposition. When you reach real time—that is, six months out from an election—there are a limited number of forums and venues for an opposition. I know oppositions do not get a fair go and that parliament is their forum. Governments do not like coming into parliament during question time to be attacked live on air. We sit here pondering and wondering: what are the opposition going to find on us today? What grandstanding issue are they going to come at us with today? How are they going to get their policy messages across? That is how we think. I am absolutely bewildered that they would spend the last two days, and I dare say the rest of the week, trying to mount a case on the Liberal Party function at Kirribilli. It simply shows that the opposition are not willing to do the hard work. They want to skate into government on very shallow and glib issues.

We all know that an opposition has to do what it has to do. When we were in opposition we did similar things—for example, on the Thai teak table at the Lodge, the kennel at the Lodge and, of course, Keating’s piggery, which was indeed a very serious issue. This is what oppositions do but the proper forum in which to do them is estimates. You spent hours and hours and days and days in estimates on the Kirribilli issue and now it looks like you are going to spend the two weeks before a long winter break on this single issue. What a political error. How distant from the Australian people can you be on this issue? On any analysis it shows that you are not willing to do the hard policy work. Ask us the questions that the Australian people want to hear.

It took the government side of the Senate to raise issues such as communications, the economy and industrial relations. I thought that those were your centrepiece. We barely hear a question about industrial relations from those opposite. We have had ministers making statements and answering questions with regard to the floods in the Hunter and the rail disaster in Victoria. We had members on our own side, not from the opposition, asking questions on climate change, law and order and the arrest of Mr Mokbel. We have had Senator Nigel Scullion, who sits in front of me now, in an answer to a question, informing the Senate as to how the government has helped volunteers and the value of volunteers to the community. All of these are issues that the Australian people are interested in and that show a connection to the Australian people. But the opposition comes in here day after day to flog that single issue of a function at Kirribilli.

I say again: we know that oppositions do that sort of thing, but how can this opposition be devoid of economic industrial relations questions? Senator Hutchins, the only man with any sense on the other side, got up in this chamber to ask a question on petrol. It must have been about the sixth question down. I would have thought it was the No. 1 question to lead with. Who is running your tactics committee? As I said, I stand up in a non-adversarial manner to offer advice to the Labor Party and to their tactics committee.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McGauran, I advise you to address your comments to the chair and not to the—

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I am looking at you.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You might be, but do not address your comments to the other side.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, perhaps you can take this message back to those in the opposition. What the Labor Party—

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The chair is never a message carrier in this place, Senator McGauran.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I know you have connections nevertheless.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You will address the chair.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, what the Labor Party should be attempting to do in this valuable period of parliament—and we are on broadcast, too—is explain to the Australian people how they are not going to destroy the mining industry through the abolition of AWAs. The mining industry is a booming sector of the economy—an industry that the opposition themselves say is carrying the economy. Yet the opposition have a policy in place that the industry seriously believes will destroy the mining boom and bring it to a grinding halt. Shouldn’t the opposition be using this opportunity in the chamber to explain their policy to the mining industry? Shouldn’t they be explaining to the building and construction industry why, in their very first term in government, they will abolish the Building and Construction Commissioner. Shouldn’t they be explaining to the Australian people the words of Kevin Reynolds when he sat up there in all his glory in his fancy apartment saying: ‘I live for the day when the Australian Building and Construction Commissioner and all the staff are all working down at Hungry Jack’s or Fast Eddy’s’ and:

I … admit that some of our disputes, like the ‘no-ticket no-start’ disputes and walking off concrete pours and things of that nature—

‘wouldn’t be accepted under this government’. You bet they would not be accepted under this government. What the other side need to explain is whether it would be accepted under their industrial relations system. That is what they should be coming in here and mounting an argument for. They should be constructing their case. Instead, they waste their time on a Liberal fundraiser at Kirribilli.

Shouldn’t the opposition be constructing and explaining their case and putting their policy forward in relation to small business? Shouldn’t they be explaining to small business the absurdity of returning to their unfair dismissal laws? Shouldn’t they be explaining to small business just how they are economic conservatives? If their record in government was not economically conservative and their record in opposition is not economically conservative then can they explain to small business how they are economically conservative? It defies belief. They ought to use this opportunity in parliament—particularly in question time, which is on-air, and in take note of answers—to explain to small business the fear that they should not have. Of course they have the fear, but they are not hearing any answers from the Labor Party.

Shouldn’t they be explaining to exporters and farmers alike how their exports will get off the wharves should the Labor Party be fortunate enough to enter government—how they will get their products off the wharves when the Labor Party reinstate secondary boycotts and the MUA, the waterfront union, is back in town? That is all they need to be back in town: the return of the secondary boycott laws. That is the day they live for. They know they will be back in town when they can grind this nation to a halt when the waterfront goes out on strike and the transport unions go out on strike with it.

Shouldn’t they be explaining to the manufacturing industry that they should not fear pattern bargaining or the pattern fees that go with it? The truth of the matter is that they cannot explain it, so they are running away from the hard work of policy. They are trying to bring glib issues into the parliament and bluff their way into government. We are in real election mode now. Time is running out for the Labor Party, and their sham over the last two days has shown them up to be shallow and not fit for government.

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to respond very briefly, in the short time that I have, to Senator McGauran, the former National Party senator. This is a man who used to be known as the Collins Street Cocky, the bloke who was the National Party senator from the middle of Melbourne who then decided that he would rat on his party and join the Liberal Party. He is now giving political advice to the opposition! I could actually cope with that. But what he is doing is questioning the right of the opposition to ensure that this government is accountable for the Prime Minister’s extraordinary abuse of a taxpayer funded official residence for a Liberal Party fundraiser.

Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McGauran interjecting—

Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Corporate Governance and Responsibility) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let’s be clear: you actually called it the ‘right thing’. It was a Liberal Party function being held at Kirribilli House, a taxpayer funded official residence, for which the Liberal Party paid the princely sum of $5,000 and not one cent for venue hire. So you want to go out there, Senator McGauran, and say to the Australian people that you think it is just fine for the Liberal Party to go ahead and use Kirribilli House for its own political purposes. You know what that shows? It shows your arrogance and it shows the arrogance of the Prime Minister, a Prime Minister who has been around for so long that he treats this place like his own. All you have done tonight, Senator McGauran, is kick another own goal and demonstrate yet again, to anybody who is listening, just how arrogant this government is. You do not want to be held accountable. You do not want to be accountable through this chamber, through question time, through the Senate estimates process. That is how this government operates after 11 years—with a complete lack of accountability and a complete lack of regard for taxpayers’ funds, just as you are spending millions of dollars of taxpayers’ money on government advertising in an attempt to try and improve your prospects of re-election. Everyone understands the lack of transparency and the lack of accountability in this government.

John Hogg (Queensland, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! The time for the debate has expired.