Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Families and Communities) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Finance and the Public Service (Senator Cormann) to a question without notice asked by Senator McAllister today relating to the Morrison Government.

As a longstanding friend of the creative industries, I'm quite worried. I think we may need to offer some sort of industry support package to the political satirists, because this government seems determined to drive them out of business by satirising itself. Prime Minister Morrison has come out and said that a vote for the Liberals is a vote for stability. He said this at the very same time—I kid you not—as his junior coalition partners, The Nationals, are plotting another leadership coup about three weeks after their last one. You can't make this stuff up. It's putting a lot of pressure on The Chaser, let me tell you. 'A vote for stability' is a pretty bold claim for a Prime Minister to make. We recall the last Prime Minister who promised stability. I don't know if you remember, but that other fellow, Mr Turnbull, the last Prime Minister, stood under a huge sign the size of a cinema screen before the last election with a big quote that said 'stable government' and he held his hands up like so. What did we get? It wasn't stable and it wasn't government. It turned out that their only plan for jobs and growth was a corporate tax cut, and they dumped that earlier this month. What about energy? We went through five separate energy policies before they settled on their current energy policy, which is basically absolutely nothing. To top it off, they changed Prime Minister after months of instability and a botched leadership coup by the Minister for Home Affairs, aided and abetted by Senator Cormann.

Given that history it is outrageously audacious for Prime Minister Morrison to claim a vote for the Liberals is a vote for stability. He is very new. We could give him the benefit of the doubt. Perhaps government under Prime Minister Morrison has been more stable. Let's have a look at what they've achieved this week: they've backflipped on their GST policy; they've upended 70 years of bipartisan foreign policy and risked one of Australia's key strategic economic relationships, our trade relationship with Indonesia; and they've supported a white supremacist slogan in the parliament. That was a mistake, if you believe Minister Cormann, but then they embarrassingly had to back down—and that backdown was a mistake, if you believe Mr Luke Howarth. Apparently that is what stability looks like under this government. Is it stability to appoint your scandal-prone numbers man as Assistant Treasurer, who then, surprisingly—who knew?—is embroiled within an expenses scandal? Is it stability for your environment minister pick a fight with a Nobel Peace Prize nominee in a crowded restaurant? I don't know. Maybe it's stability to spend weeks talking about bullying and harassment of women in your own party ranks—something of an achievement, because women in your organisation are fairly thin on the ground.

Where are we now? At the same time as the Prime Minister is promising a vote for stability, the National Party are plotting to install as Deputy Prime Minister a man whose most recent contribution was to resign after a very public drawn-out scandal. What do all of these things—the vote for a white supremacist slogan, the scandals, the 'maybe it's a decision; maybe it's not' half-decision to move the embassy—have in common?

They all derive from a government that is completely absorbed in itself and in its own internal divisions. They stem from a party room that is utterly unable to agree on the most basic of questions about the desired national direction for our country. They stem from a group of people who, intellectually, can't come to terms with Australia as it is now, let alone the Australia of the future. They're unable to put a plan together to respond to what's coming. They're unable to respond to the science of climate change. They're unable to respond to a changing global economy. They're unable to respond to the demand for greater equality for women and more women in public life. They are unable to respond to change.

This is a government that is completely absorbed in its own conflict, because, between them, they cannot agree on how to deal with the world as it is. It is not leading to stability; it is leading to chaos. It is leading to a paralysed government making ad hoc decisions that, in fact, endanger our national interest. There is no positive vision. They are extremely divided. Wentworth deserves better and so does Australia.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think this is just a great topic to discuss. Let's talk about stability. Now, Senator McAllister is a fine young lady and I'm sure her memory is very good, but I need to refresh her memory. In 2007 we had a Prime Minister called Kevin Rudd, as Senator McAllister might remember. Do you remember Prime Minister Rudd, Senator McAllister? Sorry, I'll direct my remarks through the chair. He was done over ruthlessly by a lady called Julia Gillard. Remember former Senator Mark Arbib? He was involved in a stoush. Senator Farrell? He was involved in a stoush as they went through the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd fiasco days of trying to save the furniture et cetera. And here, those opposite lecture us on stability. I find it quite amazing.

We know there are a lot of ambitions in this place—people with big egos, people who want to be on the front bench. I've said before that Senator Keneally is not used to sitting up the back of the bus. She was the Premier of New South Wales and she wants to be at the front of the bus. In fact, she wants to drive the bus—no doubt about that. And now we've got Senator Watt starting to flex his muscles because he's been promoted from the back bench to the whip after a very successful political career in state politics where he lost his seat, a safe seat! What a great legacy that is!

Stability? Let's talk about stability. How stable was the Labor Party just this week when we discussed the TPP legislation? Was that stability? No, they were divided. They were forced to support it by the hierarchy, no doubt, and many opposed it. But, of course, in the typical dictatorship of the Labor Party, you do as you are told. You're not free to cross the floor like we in the National Party and the Liberal Party are, where we actually have democracy. When there's something that we're passionate about, we can express that passion on this floor, as I did with the banking royal commission. At the time when the Greens moved a motion calling for a banking royal commission, I crossed the floor and voted with the Greens. Where was Labor? You were over there opposing the royal commission, just like when we brought down a report from the Economics Committee recommending a royal commission under that very good former Labor senator from Western Australia, Mark Bishop. Where was Labor? It was opposing the royal commission. Finally you came round. I appreciate that very much and I thank you, and what is coming out of the royal commission is quite amazing.

But, of course, we're talking about leadership. There's a bloke called Mr Anthony Albanese. He wants to drive the bus as well, I can tell you. Even the Labor Party members who voted said, 'We want Albo driving the bus.' That is the message they sent. Mr Albanese is sitting there waiting to pounce. You can see that the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd thing will happen again, as sure as I speak here now.

Now, I want to talk about the National Party leadership. I find all this talk in the media about a challenge to the Nationals leader, Mr Michael McCormack, the Deputy Prime Minister, quite amazing. As I said to John Stanley on Sydney radio today, I have not had one call or one visit from a colleague in the National Party saying to me, 'There's going to be a spill. Who are you going to vote for?'—not one.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Yet.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator O'Neill says 'yet'. But hang on, the spill's coming next week, according to some—next Tuesday or something. That's amazing—we're learning all the time—when we in the National Party have heard nothing, nothing at all. In fact, I've just heard that the member for New England, Barnaby Joyce, has publicly indicated he will not challenge for the leadership of the Nationals. That defuses it straightaway.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Like Mr Morrison the day before he became PM.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

When you lot got together to dispose of Kevin Rudd to put in Julia Gillard, you'd have been getting calls—

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

He put his arm around him one day and knifed him the next day.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Have you finished, Senator O'Neill?

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Please continue, Senator Williams.

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would like to, if I could, without these terrible, rude interjections from Senator O'Neill, Madam Deputy President.

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I just want to know: have you finished changing leaders yet?

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

There's no leadership challenge. I would be game enough to say I'll bet you there'll be no leadership challenge next week.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How much?

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I'll bet you.

Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

How much?

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Let's talk about a figure outside!

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order!

John Williams (NSW, National Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Gambling is illegal, by the way. Remember, I come from a family of bookmakers—don't want to break the law! But there will be no challenge. The only challenge we're seeing is what I'm reading in the media. I've not had one call— (Time expired)

Deborah O'Neill (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Innovation) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

During the speech that I want to make in taking note of answers given by the government today, you need to be playing, in your head, the soundtrack for The Muppet Showthe one with the little brass band sounding away, where it ends on a discordant note. Well, that's the soundtrack for this government. I used to watch The Muppet Show,and you'd only get one instalment a week. But this government is overdelivering; we're getting episodes every single day! So have the Muppet Show track playing in your head while this government is wreaking havoc, is causing chaos and is absolutely not being at all stable. We've got Prime Minister Morrison out there saying: 'Vote for Dave Sharma. Send another Liberal down here so we can continue stable government.' Let's have a look at what 'stable government' actually looked like this week.

On Tuesday, just five days before the by-election in the seat of Wentworth, which has a very large Jewish population, we had the Prime Minister say that he is going to consider up-ending 70 years of bipartisan agreement about Jerusalem. Would you believe that that is a stable government in action? It certainly didn't look really stable when we started hearing about the flurry of calls, particularly from our nearest neighbour, with a huge population, expressing considerable concern about this—the government's latest play for a few votes in Wentworth, which is supposed to be one of its safest seats. And why is it not one of their safest seats anymore? It's because they have abused the opportunity of government; they have played games with the Australian people, with our economy and our foreign policy; and they sacrificed their own Prime Minister, who was the member for that seat of Wentworth. They've caused the chaos. In the midst of that chaos, the report at the moment is that the government has spent $1.2 million stuffing the letterboxes of Wentworth with a whole lot of information, because this stable government, as it tells us it is, is fighting for its life in Wentworth. Electing Dave Sharma to send him to Canberra is not going to fix what's wrong with this government—anyone but Dave Sharma, and, preferably, our great Labor candidate, Tim Murray. He'd make a much better contribution, and I know that he'd be bringing stability in foreign policy as part of the Labor Party's conversation.

In addition to the chaos that we've seen this week, where the government have decided to play out whether they'll support foreign policy in the national interest or act in their own personal interest, we've seen that battle land on the side of the Liberal Party, against Australia's national interest.

We've also had the backflip on the GST. The GST is a pretty important policy for Australia. We've had a series of declarations from this government in the negotiations with the states—so the scale of this is quite significant—saying there would be no top-ups. Labor said that Western Australia needed its fair share of funding. We had Minister Morrison, now PM, say, 'Top-ups should not be a thing,' and suddenly this week he decided to change his mind. This is the kind of instability and uncertainty that our nation is faced with.

They've changed leaders. We had Abbott. We had Turnbull. We've got Morrison. With Morrison we are seeing this massive shift and uncertainty every single day. This is not a stable government. We made a commitment. When Labor said that the commitment to ensure that no state is worse off should be enshrined in law, around our GST, the Liberal Party just laughed at it. They said that there was no way that that should be agreed to and that they wouldn't even consider it until 2026.

What has happened this week is a situation that Labor welcomes, because we have had five years of stable leadership under Bill Shorten. We've been working hard on policies for the benefit of this nation. We remain committed to the international rule of law and stable foreign policy that is in our national interest and upholds our responsibility as a good international citizen. We would never play with the Jewish vote in Wentworth, as this Prime Minister and his team have currently undertaken in the seat of Wentworth for Saturday. The people of Wentworth should not reward this unstable government. Sending Dave Sharma will not fix it— (Time expired)

Lucy Gichuhi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator O'Neill, for reminding us about all the things that can go wrong with a government. I wonder when we are going to come to this Senate and listen to policy and policy matters and for once hear, whether Labor or Liberal, government telling us what is good in this country. When I hear words like 'instability', all I know is that, clearly, in Australia we have never seen an unstable government. This happens in other parts of the world and we know that. We should stop for a moment and consider what good is happening with this government, our government. The Morrison government is on your side—you the Australian—because of the values and the beliefs we share with Australians.

Today in question time we heard all these questions about the Middle East and about the National Party leadership. Clearly, every mum and dad out there on the streets isn't interested in those kinds of things. What they want to know is that the Morrison government, our government, is focused on making the economy stronger. Whether they're in New South Wales, where Wentworth is, whether they're in Tasmania or whether they're in my home state of South Australia, what every Australian wants to know is: 'Am I safe? Do I have a job if I need one? Is my business going to pay more or less tax?'

I look forward to the time that we make good use of our question time and talk about what the government, our government, is doing. This week we have seen the legislation of the small and family business tax cut. That has come forward five years early. This is what we need to be talking about. Nobody needs to be scared. We don't need to scare Australians. We don't need to instil fear that doesn't exist. Everybody wants to wake up and enjoy the good this country has to offer and let the leaders govern. Spills or no spills, they are part of the democracy and we have to let them happen and stop consuming our every day.

This government has started the royal commission into aged care. These are the things we need focus on: how this government, our government, is taking care of our seniors. The government is committed to our older Australians with access to care that supports their dignity and recognises the contribution that they have made to their society. These are the kinds of questions and policies that we need to be deliberating on during question time, not shouting at each other as though we have nothing else to do. Total aged-care funding is growing from $8.16 billion to $8.68 billion over the forward estimates. This is the kind of thing—the good news story—that every Australian walking on the streets needs to know.

On the GST, every state is going to be better off than before. The government's fairer GST deal leaves no state worse off and delivers real change to the system. Our government has taken the bull by the horns to address the issues that no other government has had the courage to deal with. So these are the kinds of things that, in question time, we need to spend time talking about. The economy has grown stronger. There are more jobs. Our economy is growing stronger, and every Australian in every part of this country needs to know that the economy will grow stronger and stronger, one year after the other. That is what our government is promising to do.

Anthony Chisholm (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You don't grow an economy stronger by changing Prime Minister every couple of years, and that's exactly what we've done. What the question from Senator McAllister did was highlight a horror week for this government. We got an unbelievable response from Senator Cormann, the government's Senate leader. This was his quote. He said that Australians 'know what they are getting under us'. That just inspires me to look at their record. When we look at their record, we know they have had three prime ministers. We know they are onto their third Treasurer. We know they've already had two deputy prime ministers, and there will possibly be a third by the end of next week. This is their record when it comes to who has been their leaders—Prime Minister, Treasurer and Deputy Prime Minister. You can't possibly provide the leadership that this country is looking for when you keep changing leader so regularly and keep changing the key personnel so regularly. We've suffered from that. We understand. That is why last weekend, under the Labor leadership of Bill Shorten and Tanya Plibersek, we clocked up five years of stable leadership. That is the real contrast between what Labor are providing and what we've seen from this rabble on the other side.

The consequences of having such instability in the government are actually ones that go to policy dysfunction. Let's have a look at the list of policy dysfunctions that this government have been responsible for. We know that, after being in government for five years, they still don't have an energy policy. They worked on a national energy guarantee for almost 12 months and they still couldn't settle that in the party room. They even promoted the person responsible for it, Josh Frydenberg, to Treasurer as a result, even though he couldn't get a policy on energy through the party room. We know that they couldn't settle on an education policy. They were at war with the Catholic sector for so long because they were short-changing them. It took, again, a change in personnel, a change in the ministry, before they could attempt to resolve that.

We also know about their issues with accountability and decision making. They decided to hand out almost half a billion dollars to a private foundation—the Great Barrier Reef Foundation—with no due process, no tender process. It was decided in a matter of days after a meeting between then Prime Minister Turnbull and now Treasurer Frydenberg. This is the type of government that they have been running. We also know that they have no climate change policy and no credibility when it comes to climate change. So, on key policy areas, there is just a level of dysfunction around this government because they change leaders so often. Because they change the key personnel so often, this is the result that you get.

Now let's look at what they've achieved this week. They obviously said to themselves on the weekend: 'We've got the Wentworth by-election on Saturday. We need a big effort in parliament. We've got to do really well and give our candidate there a platform.' What did they do on the first day? They came in here and voted for a white supremacist slogan. That was on day one. We know that they subsequently backtracked on that. We also know that they ended 70 years of bipartisanship over an important foreign policy matter. These are the types of decisions that they are willing to make because they are so desperate in Wentworth. They're willing to trash what has been a combined effort between both parties of government to ensure that we do our best in terms of foreign policy. They were prepared to trash that overnight, with very little consultation.

As a result of that, they put an important—probably Australia's most important—economic relationship at risk. They are so desperate in Wentworth that this is the type of behaviour we are seeing. We also know that they backflipped on the GST policy, and we know that they offended Australia's Pacific neighbours, with the Minister for the Environment, at the same time. You've got to say to yourself that it is only Thursday; there is still more time before the Wentworth by-election for them to make more decisions that are going to cost them votes in that by-election.

We know that part of the reason they were so desperate on Monday in terms of voting for that white supremacist slogan is that they still don't know how to handle Senator Hanson—whether to fight her or whether to coddle her. They came in on Monday and decided to coddle her on that motion. Then they turned up on Tuesday and said, 'No, we regret that; we're going to vote against it.' We also know that they're in such conflict over trying to get the result they need in Wentworth that they're willing to trash so many policy credentials that Australia has built over time. So, it is very evident that the chaos and dysfunction, the continuing change in leaders on the other side, is leading to a chaotic government, and the Australian people deserve so much better.

Sue Lines (WA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is that the motion as moved by Senator McAllister to take note of answers be agreed to.

Question agreed to.