Slade Brockman (WA, Deputy-President) | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Cash has submitted a proposal, under standing order 75, today, as shown at item 13 of today's Order of Business:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The Prime Minister's repeated failure to take responsibility for his crude and inappropriate conduct, his willingness to rely on senior female ministers making excuses for his behaviour, his habit of denying, minimising or rewriting the truth when caught out, and the growing pattern of broken promises, false assurances and misleading statements that has destroyed Australians' trust in his word.

Is consideration of the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clock in line with the informal arrangements made by the whips.

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

I move:

That, in the opinion of the Senate, the following is a matter of urgency:

The Prime Minister's repeated failure to take responsibility for his crude and inappropriate conduct, his willingness to rely on senior female ministers making excuses for his behaviour, his habit of denying, minimising or rewriting the truth when caught out, and the growing pattern of broken promises, false assurances and misleading statements that has destroyed Australians' trust in his word.

This motion goes to the heart of Anthony Albanese as Prime Minister of Australia—his character; his crude and inappropriate conduct but, worse than that, his refusal to take responsibility for it and, sadly, his willingness to rely on senior female ministers in his government to continue to make excuses for that crude and inappropriate behaviour; his habit of denying, minimising or rewriting the truth when caught out; and, sadly for the Australian people, the growing list of broken promises and false assurances that have destroyed any trust in his word. This is not just one incident; this is now a pattern of behaviour.

Despite what he said, the Prime Minister chose to bring the Bush Deep podcast into the Lodge. According to the host of the podcast, Nikki Osborne, this was personal. She says she contacted the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, directly through his Instagram after noticing that he followed her account. He responded. He accepted the invitation to appear on this podcast, and she says he knew the show and he knew exactly what he was agreeing to. So I say to the Prime Minister: spare Australians the pretence that this was some media ambush. This was no ambush. This was a booking made by the Prime Minister which he personally embraced.

What sort of program was it? You just needed to read Chris Kenny on the weekend; he documented it. Only weeks earlier, the same podcast the Prime Minister personally accepted an invitation to go on featured an adult content creator discussing in graphic sexual detail an encounter involving hundreds of men while the host re-enacted aspects of what was being described. That was publicly available. That was the program. So the Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese, either knew what he was walking into—and he thought it was appropriate for the Prime Minister of Australia to do such a podcast—or his office failed to do the most basic of due diligence. Take your pick because, quite frankly, neither says anything good about his judgement. Then, sadly, he joined in juvenile discussion involving accomplished Australian women and made crude remarks involving Japan's first female prime minister. They were choices. They were Anthony Albanese's choices. They were bad choices. And they were grubby choices.

When the backlash came as it did, did he take responsibility? Did he say: 'Mea culpa. I am sorry, I got it wrong, I apologise'? No, he did not. Instead, senior Labor women went out and defended him, even going to the extent of denying that those vile, crude and disgusting remarks were sexist or disrespectful. These are the same people who delight in lecturing everybody else about respect, but when Anthony Albanese is the man under scrutiny, suddenly those standards disappear. Labor's respect agenda apparently has one giant exception: Anthony Albanese.

This goes to the broader credibility problem that the Prime Minister now faces. As I said, it is now a pattern of behaviour. Before the election, what does he rule out over 50 times? Changes to negative gearing and changes to capital gains—to quote the Prime Minister, as he snapped at a reporter, 'For the 50th time'. That's 50 times, in his own words, and 50 assurances Labor would not change negative gearing or capital gains, and the Australian people voted on that. Then, of course, after the election, he merely said, 'Guess what? Despite those 50 assurances, I changed my mind.' Well, quite frankly, the problem he now has is: why would anyone now believe assurance No. 51?

Australians know the pattern: poor judgement, no responsibility, denial, minimisation, broken promises and somebody else left to clean up the mess afterwards. Anthony Albanese's problem is no longer simply that Australians disagree with him; it's that they have no reason— (Time expired)

Josh Dolega (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

It may come as no surprise that I rise to oppose Senator Cash's motion today and to address the claim that there was a growing pattern of broken promises or false assurances and misleading statements. It simply doesn't stack up, given the Albanese Labor government's record of delivery.

Australians judge governments not by slogans or personal attacks but by results. Since coming to office, the Albanese Labor government has delivered real outcomes that are improving the lives of Australians. From 1 July this year, this government has delivered another tax cut for each and every taxpayer. We've introduced and we've passed our new $1,000 instant tax deduction, introduced to deliver simpler taxes for 6.2 million workers. We've supported real wage rises for around three million workers. We've had the introduction of payday super, which will increase the retirement income of working Australians. We've expanded paid parental leave to a full six months, and super is paid on top. We've got stronger protections against supermarket price gouging. We've made permanent our Medicare urgent care clinics as part of Medicare. More medicines are on the PBS, and we've got record public hospital funding. These policies are now being delivered because Labor is committed to keeping our promises and to making life easier for hardworking Australians.

The economic results tell the same story. They demonstrate that Labor's commitments are not just promises made but promises delivered. Inflation is still lower than when Labor came to office and well below the peak. More than 1.3 million jobs have been created, and unemployment has remained historically low. Wages are growing faster than under the previous government, whose policy was deliberate wage suppression. In addition to this, new ABS data shows Australia's gender pay gap has fallen to 11.3 per cent, the lowest on record. When we came to government in 2022, it was 14.1 per cent. Since then, women working full time are earning an average of $325.50 more per week, and this hasn't happened by accident. It's the result of deliberate choices made by the Albanese Labor government and choices that we took to the last election—choices that we promised and delivered under the leadership of this prime minister, Anthony Albanese.

We've also been delivering pay rises for minimum-wage workers. We've increased wages in early childhood education and aged care. We've expanded paid parental leave. Super is now being paid on paid parental leave. Each Australian is going to be $2,800 better off when they do their tax return thanks to our tax cuts that we have delivered. In addition to this, workforce participation remains near record highs.

That commitment to delivery extends beyond the economy and into the everyday issues that matter most to Australian families. We've invested $182.6 million to reform the child support system to make sure that kids get the support that they are owed and that the system can't be weaponised to harm them. We've invested more than $4.4 billion through the National Plan to End Violence Against Women and Children. We've introduced 10 days paid domestic and family violence leave. We've expanded paid parental leave to six months, increased support for single parents, delivered significant women's health reforms and invested billions of dollars in pay rises for aged-care and ECEC workers.

On housing, we've committed more than $43 billion through the Housing Australia Plan, including a 50 per cent increase in Commonwealth Rent Assistance since May 2022, the $10 billion Housing Australia Future Fund, support for first home buyers and substantial investments in homelessness and crisis accommodation services.

In health, Labor has delivered the largest investment in Medicare in decades. We've expanded bulk-billing incentives. We've opened up more Medicare urgent care clinics. We've listed new medicines on the PBS. We've reduced medicine costs. We've rolled out the first comprehensive national package focused on women's health, including menopause and endometriosis care.

Labor, under Anthony Albanese, our prime minister, has not only kept its commitments but also delivered real improvements to the lives of Australians. Whether it's tax relief, higher wages, stronger Medicare, more affordable housing and greater support for families, our record is clear, and this prime minister's record is absolutely clear. Australians can see the difference between the rhetoric and results because we are delivering for them. (Time expired)

Leah Blyth (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Defence Infrastructure) | Link to this | Hansard source

This prime minister's record is absolutely clear. His record of spending years lecturing Australians about standards, about integrity and about respect. This is the prime minister that said this to the Australian people:

No matter who you support in politics, it is completely unacceptable to demean, objectify, belittle or offend women.

It sounds like the Prime Minister can't even keep his own storytelling abilities straight. This is a prime minister who went on a crude podcast. He participated in a joke about melons at the expense of the female prime minister of Japan. He then decided to try and tell the Australian people: 'You've misunderstood. Perhaps this isn't quite what people thought it was.' He then sent out the female leadership of his own team to try and defend what were revolting comments and gestures from a prime minister—certainly not becoming of a prime minister of a country like Australia. These loyal servants of the Prime Minister went out—these are women who supposedly care about the rights of women and are completely offended when it is anyone else who is doing the offending. But, no—'We're going to double down, and we're going to protect the Prime Minister and his absolutely disgusting actions.'

This goes to the character of a prime minister that has told the Australian people for four years that he would cut electricity by $275. That's a promise that he took to the 2022 election. I don't know about everyone else out there, but I'm still waiting for my $275 reduction. Instead, I think I've had about a 40 per cent increase. This is a prime minister who makes promises that he does not keep. He is gaslighting the Australian people every time he says: 'Oh, it's not what I meant. We've changed our mind.' This is the same prime minister who said more than 50 times that he would not touch negative gearing in Australia. Fifty times the Prime Minister said that, and then we got to see the budget that was handed down in May, and guess what? Well, he's had a change of heart. His word means nothing. This is a prime minister that is now coming after capital gains.

This is also a prime minister who keeps telling the Australian people, as do senators from across the way—they get the talking points, and I'm not sure how they regurgitate them because it is absolutely sickening to sit there and say that Australians have never had it so good in this country. They talk about the fact that wages are rising. The problem is inflation is rising higher and faster than what real wages are, which means Australians are actually working more and earning less. Yet this government, this prime minister, goes out with a straight face and says to the Australian people, 'You have never had it so good.' The Australian people have had enough. You can tell that the Australian people have had enough because this prime minister is now one of the most unpopular prime ministers. His polling is going into the toilet.

Australians watched the Prime Minister stumble off stage during the election campaign. The Prime Minister got up, after stumbling off the stage, and said, 'Oh, I didn't fall off the stage.' This is that prime minister who then says to the country, when he and Tony Burke were being heckled, that the reception was 'overwhelmingly positive' and there were just a few people who may not have agreed with him. This is a prime minister who says whatever he needs to say to the Australian people. You cannot believe a single word that this prime minister or this Labor government says. When the Prime Minister says to the Australian people that his word is his bond, the Australian people should rightly be very sceptical of that, because this prime minister has a track record for telling the Australian people one thing and then going and doing the exact opposite.

You cannot trust this prime minister. You cannot trust the government that he leads, because when this prime minister is caught out, there is always an explanation. There's always deflection. Like any good gaslighter in any kind of toxic relationship, he always puts it back to, 'Oh, you must have misunderstood.' This is a prime minister who is sending out senior ministers to clean up his mess, and Australians have rightly had enough. You cannot trust the Prime Minister. (Time expired)

Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) | Link to this | Hansard source

I too stand to speak on this urgency motion because last week we saw the latest example of a prime minister who can't tell the difference between the truth and fiction. This is a prime minister who says one thing when he's out hunting for votes and another thing when the voting is done. This is a prime minister who will call black 'white' and will call white 'black', despite the evidence clearly showing that the PM's version of events is nothing more than fantasy.

As Senator Blyth just mentioned, last year, the Prime Minister quite clearly fell off the back of a stage. It was telecast around the country. There was no doubt whatsoever what actually happened. The PM's version of events was: 'I didn't fall off the stage. I just stepped backwards.' A couple of weeks ago in a really, really grubby podcast that he did, the footage clearly showed him making creepy, demeaning and sexist gestures about the Japanese Prime Minister. The PM's version was: 'I was misrepresented.' Every single other person in this country knew exactly what the Prime Minister had done, and yet for some reason the Prime Minister thought, if he just said he hadn't done it, somehow that was enough for him not to have done it. Prime Minister, the footage told a very different story. When he was asked about the comments and the gesture, he said he was unaware that he was going to get that line of questioning from the podcast presenter. Now we find out that it was actually the Prime Minister himself who contacted the podcaster and sought to go on her podcast.

This is a PM who told Australians that his word was his bond. That can be proved to be quite clearly untrue. Ninety-seven times before the 2022 election, the Prime Minister promised Australians that they would get a reduction in their power bills of $275—not true. On becoming the Prime Minister, Mr Albanese promised that he would go to the Garma Festival every year—not true. Fifty times before the last election, the PM promised no changes to CGT or negative gearing—not true. Prior to the 2022 election, the Prime Minister promised to put the care back into aged care—not true. Today we see a prime minister waging a war on older Australians, including through his botched rollout of the aged-care reforms that see older Australians' care needs being assessed by a computer algorithm without any human override. This algorithm hasn't ever been tested in real life and is generating outcomes that are causing serious detrimental health impacts for older Australians. Then there is pushing pensioners into poverty to keep their private health insurance, the private health insurance they've paid all of their lives. Just at a time when they're likely to depend on that private health insurance, the Prime Minister is saying, 'We're not going to give you any support for that anymore.' With his cruel widows tax, he'll punish older Australians at the most traumatic time of their life, when they've just lost their husband or their wife or their partner.

This is a prime minister who in 2022 stood up and talked to the Set the standard report, which was delivered by Kate Jenkins. What sort of a standard are you setting, Prime Minister, when you can't even take responsibility for your own actions? The Prime Minister made this comment:

No-one deserves to feel unsafe or disrespected in any workplace, let alone our national parliament. Let us be the example for Australia that the national parliament ought to be.

What about the national parliament of Japan? What about the Japanese prime minister? I've got to say the Prime Minister needs to start talking the talk. He said:

We must, to put it simply, walk the talk.

Prime Minister, you need to walk the talk because, quite clearly, you're not. You can't trust this prime minister to keep his promises. You can't trust this prime minister to keep his word. This prime minister said in June this year:

No matter who you support in politics, it is completely unacceptable to demean, objectify, belittle or offend women.

But he is now prepared to make his female cabinet ministers defend him when he makes demeaning, objectifying, belittling and offensive comments about the Japanese prime minister.

Jana Stewart (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise to oppose this motion. Australians expect us to focus on issues that matter. They expect us to spend our time discussing real challenges facing households and communities, not engaging in the political theatre that we've seen in this parliament over the last couple of weeks.

But, if those opposite want to talk about women, I am more than happy to talk about this government's record. When it comes to women's safety, women's economic security and women's health, this government has delivered reforms that make a real difference in people's lives. Women's safety sits at the absolute top of our priorities. Since 2022, we have committed more than $4 billion to the National Plan to End Violence against Women and Children, including support for 1800RESPECT, frontline services and the first dedicated First Nations plan to end violence. We have legislated 10 days of paid domestic and family violence leave. We've invested in child support reform. We've delivered $3.9 billion in new funding for legal assistance services. We implemented every recommendation of the Respect@Work report. Senator Ruston asked what standard we are setting. That is the standard we are setting. We are investing in women and the things that keep them safe. These aren't slogans. These are practical reforms that improve safety, support and justice for women across our country.

We've also strengthened women's economic security. We've cut the gender pay gap to a record low. Nearly 700,000 more women are in work today thanks to the Albanese Labor government. Women's workforce participation remains near record highs. Paid parental leave is now six months. We are paying superannuation on paid parental leave, which was precisely zero per cent under those opposite. It is now 12 per cent under us. We've introduced a three-day childcare guarantee. We have delivered more than $24 billion in wage rises for aged-care and early childhood workers, which are workforces that are overwhelmingly made up of women, the last time that I checked. When women earn more, save more and retire with more security, that is not an accident. It is the result of deliberate policy decisions that this government has acted on and delivered.

We have also invested $792 million into women's health. We have opened 33 endometriosis and pelvic pain clinics, expanded menopause care and listed the first new contraceptive and menopause therapies on the PBS in decades. More than 900,000 women have already benefited, saving more than $149 million across millions of PBS prescriptions. This type of investment in women's health was just not happening under the former, coalition government.

It is therefore quite extraordinary to hear those opposite come into this chamber and try to lecture us about women at all, because, when Australians compare the records, the contrast could not be clearer. Under the former government, there were zero days of paid domestic and family violence leave, there was zero superannuation on paid parental leave, there was zero childcare guarantee and there was no national gender equality strategy. Gender-responsive budgeting was abandoned. There were fewer women in full-time work and fewer women represented in this place. The difference is simple: this government has acted, this government has delivered and this government has invested in women. That is the difference between a government focused on outcomes and an opposition focused on headlines.

While those opposite are focused on political stunts, Australians are focused on something else entirely, and that is the cost of living. They want politicians talking about household budgets. They want politicians talking about wages. They want politicians talking about health care, education and making life easier for families. Instead, those opposite have brought forward a motion that changes nothing and helps precisely no-one. While they focus on distractions, the Albanese Labor government is getting on with the job. We've cut taxes. We've done an instant tax deduction. Minimum- and award-wage earners have received a pay rise. Paid parental leave has been expanded to six months. Medicare urgent care clinics have become a permanent part of Medicare. This government is delivering for women.

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Women) | Link to this | Hansard source

I've been listening to the contributions from those on the other side of the chamber, and I understand that it's very hard to defend the indefensible. It is very clear to all Australians, not just those people in this chamber, that the Prime Minister hasn't told the truth. That is a problem. That is not a point of political theatre. That is not a political stunt. It is the truth. The Prime Minister himself has changed his story around what happened here. The Prime Minister insists that he didn't know what questions he was going to be asked, but the podcaster tells us that those questions were answered. The Prime Minister has told us that he was sought out to do this podcast. The podcaster tells us that the Prime Minister reached out to her.

Why does this matter? This matters because it's important for Australians to be able to trust their leadership. At a time when there is an absolute breakdown of trust in institutions around the world, as well as here in Australia, and a breakdown of trust in government, the last thing that Australians need is for their prime minister not to tell them the truth, and it goes to integrity. This prime minister has said that the truth is his bond. That hasn't happened here. He hasn't told the truth.

Senator Dolega made the comment that our suggestion that there has been a series of broken promises doesn't stack up. It certainly does stack up, and I'll take the government's changes on negative gearing and CGT as exhibit A. This prime minister, 50 times, said: 'I've told you that I'm not going to make any changes. They're off the table.' But, after the election, when he was elected by Australians based on those false promises, he said that the government's position had changed. That's a broken promise. That is saying one thing to get elected and then, once you're elected, doing exactly the thing that you said you wouldn't do. That is not integrity, that is not telling the truth and that is not the act of a transparent government or a transparent prime minister. The reason I raise that is that it has now become a pattern of behaviour.

Senator Ruston raised the issue of the Prime Minister falling off the step during the last election campaign. He couldn't even admit that that's what had happened. Why? Who cares? We can all take a bit of a tumble or a misstep. What difference does it make if you say you tripped, fell over or made a mistake? What the Prime Minister should've done here in relation to this podcast was say: 'You know what? I got it wrong. I shouldn't have participated in this podcast. I shouldn't have answered those questions. I shouldn't have had this podcast hosted in the Lodge, which belongs to all Australians of which any prime minister is simply a custodian, and it was a mistake to make vulgar and inappropriate comments about prominent females'—one Australian and one Japanese prime minister. It's not good enough.

We expect better than that, and the fact that we have had the Prime Minister ducking and weaving in relation to that makes it even worse. I totally reject the comments that this is about political theatre or that this is a political stunt. This is about holding the Prime Minister of this country to account and telling him that, when you do not tell the truth to Australians, we will hold you accountable for that. Australians deserve to be told the truth. They don't deserve to be misled by their prime minister. They don't deserve to be made to think that they got it wrong or that they misunderstood what the Prime Minister meant. It is blatantly clear to anybody that watched that podcast what the Prime Minister said and what the Prime Minister meant, and I'm very sorry in particular to the women opposite that have had to defend it.

Sue Lines (President) | Link to this | Hansard source

The question is the urgency motion moved by Senator Cash be agreed to.