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senate vote 2022-02-08#1
Edited by
mackay staff
on
2022-08-19 16:18:19
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Title
Business — Rearrangement- Business - Rearrangement - Let a vote on no confidence happen
Description
<p class="speaker">Larissa Waters</p><p>I seek leave to move a motion relating to confidence and the lack thereof in this government.</p>-
- The majority voted against a [motion](https://www.openaustralia.org.au/senate/?id=2022-02-08.15.2):
- > *That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to lack of confidence in the government.*
- [Standing orders](https://peo.gov.au/understand-our-parliament/how-parliament-works/parliament-at-work/standing-orders/) are the usual procedural rules of parliament.
<p>Leave not granted.</p><p>Pursuant to contingent notice of motion, I move:</p><p class="italic">That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent me from moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion relating to lack of confidence in the government.</p><p>I urge the Senate to suspend standing orders so that the Senate can vote on this motion of no confidence in this government. This vote is urgent because no-one can honestly have confidence in this government. We need to put this government out of its misery. This is not just about the text messages; it's because the government cannot keep people safe. It is urgent, because each week 200 people are dying from COVID. For January, that's the highest in the Asia-Pacific region per head of population.</p><p>They can't keep people safe from the climate crisis, because they're deliberately making it worse. They can't keep women safe at work, refusing to back all of the recommendations in the safe at work report. We must urgently consider this matter, because the government can't keep people safe from rising inequality. Millions of people are in dangerous insecure work, underpaid, living in unaffordable housing or not having housing at all and struggling to keep their head above water. This is not just about the text messages.</p><p>The texts just show what we've all known: these guys are in it for themselves. The Prime Minister would sell out anyone to get ahead, and those texts show that those closest to him know that all too well. During the pandemic, he and this rotten government have undermined the states. They've overseen a crisis in aged care, given false confidence to people and have failed to prepare for life after lockdown. We must urgently suspend standing orders.</p><p>Right now, our elders are stuck inside their rooms, and Mr Morrison and Mr Dutton can't agree on how to help. They're fighting for the top job while people drive around trying to find RATs. And, callously, the health minister is claiming that those who have died would have died anyway. This chaos is dangerous, and a fish rots from the head. How can anyone have confidence in this government?</p><p>We must consider this urgently, because the government can barely pass legislation. It can't establish an integrity commission. It's too busy to do that one. It's too busy for the Prime Minister to watch Grace Tame and Brittany Higgins speak at the Press Club tomorrow. This government is hanging on by one vote in the House, and it doesn't have the numbers here in the Senate. It can't get real climate action past the National Party. It can't decide whether schools should be allowed to discriminate against LGBTIQ+ kids. It can't even back a wage rise for aged-care workers. All of these issues are putting people's lives at risk. This government cannot keep people safe, and that's exactly why we need to consider this motion of no confidence urgently.</p><p>Over the last three summers, people have died because of the failures of this government. People died in climate fuelled bushfires while Mr Morrison went on holiday to Hawaii. He waved coal around in parliament, shouting, 'Don't be scared.' People died in aged-care homes while the responsible minister went to the cricket. In a crisis, in a pandemic, you need clear, honest information from trusted sources. We have been denied that from this government because, as the text messages show, it can't tell the truth. Through the government's trying to take all the credit and push off all the blame, the country has lost all confidence. This Senate chamber must urgently consider this motion because, while the country faced incredible anxiety, stress and uncertainty caused by the global pandemic, the government were more concerned about their own re-election.</p><p>We've seen the Prime Minister try to appeal to antivaxxers when it suited him and then lock out sports stars—again, to try to be popular. But we remember what you've said and what you've done, Prime Minister. The people aren't stupid; the polls show that they're onto you. Women don't like being told that they're lucky not to be shot when they speak up. Aged-care residents don't like being told that they were going to die anyway. People who are worried about the climate crisis don't like seeing coal being waved about in parliament. It's not surprising that someone in the cabinet reportedly called him 'a psycho': a man who has a trophy that he awarded himself for stopping the boats full of desperate people seeking safety in Australia, a man who waves coal around in parliament, a man who stands over people to get what he wants. Only a 'horrible, horrible man' could be proud to build a political career on the abuse of honourable people. The former Premier of New South Wales was right; this is a horrible, horrible man.</p><p>This government, led by this Prime Minister, cares only about itself. Former prime minister Malcolm Turnbull knows that. The President of France knows that. Julia Banks knows that. Even Minister Joyce knows that. The Prime Minister is a bully, he's a bigot, he's a liar and he's a fraud. We must urgently consider this vote of no confidence because the people of this country have lost confidence in him and in the government he purports to lead. This government has had a go. They've failed, and now they've got to go.</p> <p class="speaker">Simon Birmingham</p><p>I hate to break it to the Australian Greens, but there is a time and place for this to be considered, and that will be at an election in a few months time. That will be when the Australian people make their decision about who governs and about the constitution of this parliament for the next three years, just as they did a little under three years ago when they re-elected the Morrison government. As much as the Australian Greens may wish to change the normal electoral course, the fact is it's a job for the Australian people at the election. And I know—</p><p>An honourable senator: Call the election!</p><p>There are the Greens, calling for an early election. I heard Senator Waters earlier, proclaiming what she saw to be the election outcome, talking about the polls, predicting the election outcome, showing the same type of hubris that she did three years ago when she made exactly the same sorts of calls, exactly the same sorts of observations about the polls, only of course to be completely wrong.</p><p>We will take nothing for granted when we go to the election in a few months time, but we will welcome the opportunity to stand on our track record of keeping Australians safe and secure through some of the most uncertain times the world has faced—through the most uncertain times, arguably, that most people in this chamber at this point in time have ever lived through. We will stand on a record that sees 1.7 million more Australians in jobs—employed, with the opportunities and the dignity that come from paid work and employment. Today, there are 1.7 million more than when our government was first elected. Incredibly, there has been a recovery and surge of 1.1 million in employment and job numbers since the pandemic of COVID-19 struck and since it disrupted economies and lives in every country around the world. You get a sort of alternative view of history from those opposite—and from the Greens from time to time—who seem to pretend that COVID-19 is happening in isolation here in Australia and ignore many of the comparisons with situations around the rest of the world.</p><p>But here in Australia, not without challenge, not without difficulty and not without mistakes, we have nonetheless still seen lower rates of fatalities than global averages in most other comparable nations. We have achieved higher rates of vaccinations than most other comparable nations, and we have secured stronger economic outcomes than most other nations. That's a testament to the work and cooperation of all Australians. We don't stand here as a government proclaiming all of those achievements as exclusively our own. They're the work that came from the earliest decisions that were taken to close Australia's international borders, decisions that Prime Minister Morrison took—before the global pandemic had been declared by the World Health Organization, it was recognised here in Australia. And through that closure of borders we managed to keep most of the earlier, deadlier strains of COVID-19 at bay in Australia—to buy the time for vaccines to be developed and to buy the time for the rollout to occur and to give Australians the opportunity to protect and secure themselves, as they have done in record numbers.</p><p>Through that time, our economic response plans have worked. That 1.7 million additional Australians in jobs that have been secured sees one million more Australian women in work as a result. It sees some of the highest women's workforce participation rates that our country has ever seen. It sees unemployment standing at 4.2 per cent, a 13-year low in unemployment. Youth unemployment is at such lows, in part, because of the 220,000 trade apprenticeships that have been generated, operating today as a result of the economic response policies our government has put in place. Australian families and households are dealing with the challenges of COVID with the extra security of lower taxes—there are some 11½ million Australian families enjoying tax relief to the tune of $1½ billion per month in additional income into their households to secure them.</p><p>We oppose the suspension of standing orders because this parliament has real business to get on with today, rather than the stunts of the Australian Greens. The Australian people will get to have their say at an election that we will contest, and we will argue strongly in terms of our track record and in terms of our economic plans for the future, and against the type of Labor-Greens alliance that will go to the election and that will, no doubt, if they are successful, work hand in glove, and will see those opposite held to ransom by the likes of Senator Waters.</p> <p class="speaker">Katy Gallagher</p><p>enator GALLAGHER (—) (): The Labor Party will be supporting the suspension. Whilst we agree with the Leader of the Government in the Senate that there are important matters before this chamber this week, the competence and capability of the government is right at the top of that list. It gives us no pleasure to say that this is a government that has given up governing, and we have no confidence in this government.</p><p>The reason it gives me no pleasure is because, by saying that, we are letting the Australian people down—the Australian people, who rely on government to help them, to give them a hand up and to fix their problems. The government have gone missing. They are so disunified: fighting each other, leaking against each other, attacking their leader, telling the truth about their leader, wanting the Australian people to know what they really think—and, while they're doing that, they're not looking after the Australian people and all the problems that the Australian people are feeling now. There are problems in aged care, where the situation is so dire, with thousands infected with COVID, hundreds dying and staff not able to perform their jobs.</p><p>That's the real world out there. People are worried about COVID. People are worried about their kids. People are worried about getting access to the booster. These are people's real worries: how they pay to fill their car up, how they buy their groceries, how they meet the rising cost of living. These are the problems that are out there. The Australian people deserve a government that's going to turn up every day and work on their behalf, and we haven't seen any evidence of that for months from this government. They're missing in action, and their disunity and failure to govern has real-life consequences for the Australian people. That is what angers us, and that is why we are supporting this today. We have no confidence. The Australian people are fast losing any remnant of confidence they had, waking up to stories about psychos and horrible, horrible men and liars and hypocrites and to stories about infighting. They don't want to hear about that. They want a government in place that's going to deal with the real challenges facing this country.</p><p>We, as others already have, can go through the list of failures of this government: the rorts; the waste; the billions of dollars of taxpayer funds that have gone into political sandbagging of seats; the climate wars' nine years of inaction and scaremongering, leaving it to future generations to deal with a much bigger issue and a much bigger problem; the constant lying by the Prime Minister; the failure to take responsibility—world leaders have called him out, for goodness' sake; his deputy has called him out—the COVID response; the lack of access to rapid antigen tests. How many of us, as representatives of our communities, have experienced that over summer? No-one could get a RAT and, at the same time, we were being told that you had to get yourself tested if you wanted to do anything. That was fine if you were able to. It was a massive failure. The aged-care minister hopped off to the cricket. I don't have a problem with people going to the cricket—I love the cricket—but I do have a problem with Australia's aged-care minister going to the cricket when people are dying, people are not getting fed, people are not able to have a bath or a shower and staff working there are having the most horrendous experiences. I do have a problem with that. Then I have a Prime Minister who says, 'That's okay. Sure, he copped that criticism; no problem,' while the system is in crisis and falling apart.</p><p>We in this place are used to the leadership failures of this Prime Minister. We see them every single day: bushfires, vaccines, aged care, the failure to take responsibility, the blame-shifting to the states—'it's not our fault; it's theirs'—not being straight with people, changing his answer. I remember him saying, 'I really did like electric vehicles. I never said they were going to end the weekend.' Yes, you did, so many times. This is the standard we have set at the top of this government. There is disunity. They cannot solve problems for people if they are too busy fighting themselves, and that is what we are seeing. This Prime Minister is out of touch. He has no understanding of how to deal with the challenges facing the Australian people. They've even given up pretending to govern on behalf of the people of Australia and they should call the election now.</p> <p class='motion-notice motion-notice-truncated'>Long debate text truncated.</p>-
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