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representatives vote 2014-11-24#2
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2015-01-08 12:05:00
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Title
Motions — Prime Minister; Attempted Censure- Motions - Prime Minister - Attempted Censure
Description
<p class="speaker">Bill Shorten</p><p>I seek leave to move the following motion:</p><p class="italic">That this House censures the Prime Minister for:</p>- The majority voted against a [motion](http://www.openaustralia.org.au/debates/?id=2014-11-24.83.2) letting the Leader of the Opposition, Mr [Bill Shorten](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/maribyrnong/bill_shorten), put a motion condemning the [Prime Minister](https://theyvoteforyou.org.au/people/representatives/warringah/tony_abbott).
- ### Wording of the motion
- > *That so much of [standing and sessional orders](http://www.peo.gov.au/learning/fact-sheets/standing-orders.html) be suspended as would prevent that Honourable the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion immediately.*
- > *That this House censures the Prime Minister for:*
- > *1) repeatedly and deliberately misleading the parliament and the Australian people by:*
- >> *a) [promising no cuts to the ABC or SBS](http://www.sbs.com.au/news/article/2013/09/06/no-cuts-abc-or-sbs-abbott), but cutting over $500 million and at least 400 jobs from these organisations;*
- >> *b) promising before the election [no cuts to education](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/no-cuts-to-education-promise-check/5551658), [no cuts to health](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/no-cuts-to-health-promise-check/5512272), but cutting $80 billion from schools and hospitals;*
- >> *c) promising before the election no cuts to education, but cutting more than $5.8 billion from our universities, meaning Australian students will pay more than $100,000 for a degree;*
- >> *d) promising before the election no cuts to health, but hitting every Australian with a GP tax every time they visit the doctor;*
- >> *e) promising [no changes to pensions](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/pensions-dont-change-promise-check/5388348), but cutting $450 million from pension indexation;*
- >> *f) promising [no change to the GST](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/no-change-to-the-gst-promise-check/5474144), but blackmailing states and territories to make the case for him;*
- >> *g) promising to [build submarines in Australia](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-11-07/build-australias-new-submarine-fleet-in-adelaide-promise-check/5731260), but going back on this promise; and*
- >> *h) promising [no new or increased taxes](http://www.abc.net.au/news/2014-07-27/no-tax-increases-promise-check/5429922), but ambushing the Australian people with a $2.2 billion petrol tax.*
- > *2) for his dishonest and unfair budget which is hurting Australians.*
<p class="italic">1) repeatedly and deliberately misleading the parliament and the Australian people by</p><p class="italic">a) promising no cuts to the ABC or SBS, but cutting over $500 million and at least 400 jobs from these organisations;</p><p class="italic">b) promising before the election no cuts to education, no cuts to health, but cutting $80 billion from schools and hospitals;</p><p class="italic">c) promising before the election no cuts to education, but cutting more than $5.8 billion from our universities, meaning Australian students will pay more than $100,000 for a degree;</p><p class="italic">d) promising before the election no cuts to health, but hitting every Australian with a GP tax every time they visit the doctor;</p><p class="italic">e) promising no changes to pensions, but cutting $450 million from pension indexation;</p><p class="italic">f) promising no change to the GST, but coercing states and territories to make the case for them;</p><p class="italic">g) promising to build submarines in Australia, but going back on this promise; and</p><p class="italic">h) promising no new or increased taxes, but ambushing the Australian people with a $2.2 billion petrol tax.</p><p class="italic">2) for his dishonest and unfair budget which is hurting Australians.</p> <p class="speaker">Christopher Pyne</p><p>Leave is not granted.</p> <p class="speaker">Bill Shorten</p><p>I move:</p><p>That so much of standing and sessional orders be suspended as would prevent that Honourable the Leader of the Opposition from moving the following motion immediately.</p><p class="italic">That this House censures the Prime Minister for:</p><p class="italic">1) repeatedly and deliberately misleading the parliament and the Australian people by:</p><p class="italic">a) promising no cuts to the ABC or SBS, but cutting over $500 million and at least 400 jobs from these organisations;</p><p class="italic">b) promising before the election no cuts to education, no cuts to health, but cutting $80 billion from schools and hospitals;</p><p class="italic">c) promising before the election no cuts to education, but cutting more than $5.8 billion from our universities, meaning Australian students will pay more than $100,000 for a degree;</p><p class="italic">d) promising before the election no cuts to health, but hitting every Australian with a GP tax every time they visit the doctor;</p><p class="italic">e) promising no changes to pensions, but cutting $450 million from pension indexation;</p><p class="italic">f) promising no change to the GST, but blackmailing states and territories to make the case for him;</p><p class="italic">g) promising to build submarines in Australia, but going back on this promise; and</p><p class="italic">h) promising no new or increased taxes, but ambushing the Australian people with a $2.2 billion petrol tax.</p><p class="italic">2) for his dishonest and unfair budget which is hurting Australians.</p><p>The Prime Minister stared down the barrel of a camera the night before the election and he promised:</p><p class="italic">… no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no change to pensions, no change to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.</p><p>This is why we must suspend standing orders. In question after question in this parliament today, the words of the Prime Minister were put back to him. Did he have the honesty to say: 'I said this'? Not at all. Instead he ran all sorts of disingenuous, dishonest defences.</p><p>He said he promised no special treatment. Well, actually, he did. He said, 'no cuts to ABC, no cuts to SBS'. We did not make him say that script. I am sure there are now ministers in the government slapping their hands over their foreheads and saying, 'What on earth was the Prime Minister thinking?' But this is a Prime Minister who was adrift in terms of his own policy. He has no regulators or breaks in terms of what he says and when he says it. He promised no cuts to education, no cuts to health, no changes to pensions, no changes to the GST and no cuts to the ABC or SBS.</p><p>This is why we should suspend standing orders: he is cutting half a billion dollars from the ABC. This Prime Minister says, 'It's just waste.' How dare this man say to 400 people that you are just a waste. How dare he say, as he shuts down the ABC radio in Morwell, that that is just a waste—and in Gladstone and in Nowra. This is a Prime Minister who does not know the value of the people who work for the public service of Australia. He has taken over $45 million as a down-payment out of the Australia Network. Then he sent Malcolm Turnbull, a man who spent his adult political life trying to pretend he is different from Tony Abbott—</p><p>Opposition members: Stay! Stay!</p><p>Actions speak louder than words for Malcolm Turnbull.</p><p>What we see with the ABC is that the Prime Minister is engaging in an extremist, ruthless right-wing campaign to silence the ABC.</p> <p class="speaker">Bronwyn Bishop</p><p>The member for Lalor will go back to her seat or remain silent.</p> <p class="speaker">Bill Shorten</p><p>This is a Prime Minister who has no integrity when it comes to keeping his commitments to the Australian people. The reason we believe that standing orders should be suspended to censure this Prime Minister is that it is not just about the cuts to the ABC. What he is seeking to do is lay waste to the moral basis of pluralism and democracy in this country. He is a narrow man and he has no ideology other than extremism.</p><p>Look at what they seek to do to our hospitals. In the budget—the document that dare not speak its name, the document that has effectively destroyed the authority of the Treasurer in this parliament once and for all—they say there are no cuts to hospitals. But when you study their budget documents they clearly show that there are massive cuts coming to hospitals. Tony Abbott has now excised the state of Victoria from the Australian Commonwealth—that is why he sends his foreign minister to visit Victoria. And of course his poor old beleaguered Victorian MPs love the petrol tax three weeks out from an Victorian election—another gift from a foreign nation called Tony Abbott! They are going to cut $13 billion from the hospitals of Victoria over the next 10 years. Shame Liberal, shame.</p><p>Then we look at schools. Before the last election the Prime Minister said no cuts. They send out the petition meister, the education minister—I tell you what, if you ever need a cabinet minister, don't ring him, but if you want an ineffective petition, Christopher Pyne is your man. He would actually be hilarious if he were not a cabinet minister. The issue is that they are going to cut billions from schools.</p><p>This is a government that is adrift. They have no domestic policy. The budget indicates their failure to have a plan for Australia. There is no future plan for Australia under this government. They say before the election they support needs based funding. They say before the election that they are the best friends that public schools will ever see. Then, once they get elected, they break their promise. But it does not just stop at hospitals and it does not just stop at schools.</p><p>How about the submarines promise? Who knows what deal this Prime Minister has done with the Prime Minister of Japan and the Americans not to build submarines in Australia? That will come out. But the Prime Minister promised. It does not matter about the shouting from the beleaguered backbench of the government. Late at night, when they pull the doona over their head, in that fearful part of their heart they know that the Prime Minister has led them into a colossal disaster. Why on earth did the Prime Minister lie? This is a Prime Minister who made his reputation, more than any other figure in modern Australian politics, when he tried to crucify Julia Gillard by saying he would not break his promises.</p><p>Honourable members interjecting—</p> <p class="speaker">Bronwyn Bishop</p><p>There will be silence on both sides!</p> <p class="speaker">Bill Shorten</p><p>But there is no Prime Minister who has ever broken so many promises. Look at this smirking fellow—he is so happy with himself. What did he say today? 'I didn't say there'd be special treatment.' He has attacked the media, the ABC, for being wasteful. Who are you to defame so many people in our public broadcaster?</p><p>It is not just the submarines. What about the petrol tax? How many Victorian MPs have asked Tony Abbott to come and open their launches in the state campaign? If there are more than none, I will be amazed. But it is not just that. Then we look at the GST. This is a Prime Minister who has turned his back on all his own views in <i>Battlelines</i> and believing in a strong national government. He is disowning the functions of the federal government, he is turning his back on 50 years of cooperative federalism and he is saying, 'We are going to cut and cut and cut the funding to the states to force them to have a GST debate.' This is a Prime Minister who does not have the courage to advocate his own reforms. I would have more respect not for his ideology but for his policy courage if he would come out and advocate a GST, because that is what he thinks. And Australia knows what he thinks.</p><p>Then of course we get to arguably the greatest travesty of this government—the attack on the hopes and dreams of millions of Australian students and their families. Those opposite want to create a two-class Australia and a two-tier education system. What they wish to do to higher education is disgraceful: a 20 per cent cut to the funding of universities, doubling the bond rate of the repayment debts of students who go to university. Listen to the silence now. It speaks volumes. Even those opposite know the truth.</p><p>This is a government who deserves to be held to account, and that is why standing orders should be suspended. No cuts to pensions, no cuts to the ABC or SBS, no cuts to hospitals or education, no changes to taxes. This is a government who not only lies to the Australian people, who cheated their way into the election by lying to the Australian people; they now lie about lying. Shame, Prime Minister, shame.</p> <p class="speaker">Bronwyn Bishop</p><p>Is the motion seconded?</p> <p class="speaker">Jason Clare</p><p>The motion is seconded, and I reserve my right to speak.</p> <p class="speaker">Christopher Pyne</p><p>I do appreciate the opportunity the Leader of the Opposition has given us to actually talk more generally about the points he has been making.</p> <p class="speaker">Opposition Members</p><p>Opposition members interjecting—</p> <p class="speaker">Bronwyn Bishop</p><p>The member for Lingiari will remove himself from the chamber under standing order 94(a).</p><p class="italic"> <i>The member for Lingiari then left the chamber.</i></p> <p class="speaker">Christopher Pyne</p><p>This is a very broad motion and I would remind the Leader of the Opposition that at no point during his rambling speech did the government take the general point of order that he was not talking to the suspension of standing orders, so I intend to use this as an opportunity to outline to the House and to the Australian people the realities of the political situation that we found ourselves in 12 months ago.</p><p>Twelve months ago, after 2007 to 2013, one of the most rotten governments in Australia history was cut down by the Australian people in a landslide defeat. It was not a fluke. It did not just happen. They did not just fall out of office. It was not by one or two seats or half a per cent. They were beaten and beaten badly, because they had six years of the most grotesque chaos and dysfunction that the Australian public has ever had to tolerate.</p><p>Let's go through it. They had a Prime Minister in Kevin Rudd. They went to bed one night with Kevin Rudd as the Prime Minister and they woke up the next morning with Julia Gillard was the Prime Minister. They went to bed one night with Julia Gillard as Prime Minister and the next morning they woke up and Kevin Rudd was Prime Minister again. In a six-year period they managed to knife two Prime Ministers in the back, led by the Leader of the Opposition, 'Bill the knife'. In fact, it was exposed by Paul Kelly in his excellent book, where he wrote: 'The Gillard camp was contemptuous of Shorten, considering him weak and duplicitous'.</p><p>The Australian public know that for all of the huffing and puffing, all of the confected outrage from the Leader of the Opposition, he has not at any point said that he would put any of the money back that he claims has been taken from any of the areas of government spending. Whether it is efficiency dividends or whether it is a reduction in the increase in spending, he has not said he will put any of that money back or return things to the state they were in in 2013, because he knows that he cannot.</p><p>At the next election, in 2016, the Australian public will be faced with the prospect of electing a weak and duplicitous Leader of the Opposition, who could not stay loyal to one Prime Minister, let alone two Prime Ministers, because he was so ambitious, so ruthless and so relentless in his pursuit of power that he stabbed two Prime Ministers in the back, not just one.</p><p>During those six year we had Harry Jenkins stabbed in the back and replaced by Peter Slipper, as the Speaker. We had Craig Thomson defended and supported by this Leader of the Opposition and by Julia Gillard throughout the tawdry period when we were trying to bring Craig Thomson into this House to explain himself. We had the pink batts disaster. We had 'cash for clunkers'. We had $16.5 billion wasted on school halls throughout Australia. We had the live cattle export disaster, based on one television program on <i>Four Corners</i>. The Labor Party thought it was good public policy to destroy the live cattle export industry in Australia, putting 1,000 Indigenous workers out of their jobs, destroying livelihoods, destroying farms and breaking people all across Northern Australia.</p><p>Opposition members interjecting—</p> <p class="speaker">Bronwyn Bishop</p><p>The member for Watson!</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>
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