Senate debates

Monday, 23 August 2021

Statements

Prime Minister

1:50 pm

Photo of Tim AyresTim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | | Hansard source

[by video link] Senator Patrick's right. Words matter, but deeds matter a lot more. Today, coalition members—Senator Abetz, Senator Fierravanti-Wells and others—spoke up about the antislavery bill, but neither they nor their coalition colleagues voted for it.

Similarly, crises reveal character, and that's true of this Prime Minister. In the full public gaze of the COVID pandemic crisis, we see a Prime Minister whose real character is revealed. Not since Billy McMahon, the former member for Lowe, has a Prime Minister so visibly, so consistently shrunk from national challenges. Not since then has a Prime Minister been so diminished by his failure to grasp the responsibilities of his job that he and the former member for Lowe are contenders for the worst prime ministers in Australian history. Whether it's on Afghanistan and the failure over years and years, and latterly months and months, all through this year, when it was clear that we had a special responsibility to Afghans who had worked with Australian troops; on vaccines and the absolute failure to secure supply for Australians; on national quarantine and the bungling and incapacity to grasp the responsibility that the Prime Minister has under the Constitution to keep Australians safe; on bushfires, where, having been humiliated for not telling the truth about his overseas holiday, he proceeded to bully Australians, including journalists; or on not implementing the Respect@Work recommendations—at every juncture, on every crisis, this Prime Minister just keeps getting smaller.