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Tuesday, 1 November 2011
Page: 12296

Qantas

Mr ABBOTT (Warringah—Leader of the Opposition) (13:43): This question is to the Prime Minister. I refer the Prime Minister to her government's embarrassing record—its failure to put pink batts in roofs without starting fires; its failure to build school halls without rip-off after rip-off; its panicked handling of the live cattle exports; the biggest budget deficit in our history, its failure to protect Australia's borders and the introduction of the world's only economy-wide carbon tax, which it promised would never happen. I ask: given the Prime Minister's failure to act on Saturday to prevent 48 hours of avoidable chaos, how can she expect the Australian people to have any faith whatsoever in this divided and directionless government?

Ms GILLARD (Lalor—Prime Minister) (13:44): To the Leader of the Opposition I say, gee, it is getting a bit embarrassing for you now, isn't it? There he is, with his chants of negativity. He comes in here every day and he has clipped together his little negative slogans. He has done that with a sense of desperation today because he is in cover-up mode. He does not want to be asked when he knew what he knew about Qantas. Did he know an hour before the planes were grounded? Did he know 24 hours before the planes were grounded? Did he know 48 hours before the planes were grounded? Did he ring up Qantas and suggest the planes should be grounded? Who knows what role the Leader of the Opposition played in this dispute, because he is in cover-up mode, having screamed for the truth yesterday? He wanted to know every word, every telephone call, every piece of legal advice and what was said to every minister in every meeting. He screamed for the truth. He yelled for the truth. He wanted the truth. Then, confronted with questions about his role today, he was stunningly silent. So, in the midst of that stunning silence, he has obviously gone to the 'break glass in case of emergency', and he has gone and got all of his old negative slogans out and knitted them together as a question. It is truly pathetic.

Let me say this to the Leader of the Opposition: this government will continue to do the following things. We will continue to have the Fair Work system; the Leader of the Opposition believes in Work Choices. We will continue to ensure that there is a strong national economy that works in the interests of all; the Leader of the Opposition wants the miners to pay less tax—he wants to take money off other people and make the miners pay less tax. We will ensure that Australians have the benefit of new technology, the National Broadband Network; the Leader of the Opposition wants to rip it out of the ground. We will ensure that Australians have a clean energy future at the lowest possible price; just as the Leader of the Opposition wants to give money to big miners, he wants to take money off Australian families and give it to big polluters. We will ensure that we continue to reform and invest in our education system; the Leader of the Opposition is committed to ripping money out of schools and apprenticeships. We will continue to ensure that we invest in the future of Australian health; the Leader of the Opposition is a man whose only achievement as health minister in this nation was taking a billion dollars out of hospitals. We will continue to ensure that working people in this country can see an economy that is being managed in their interests and that they are receiving the services that families need; the Leader of the Opposition would never manage the economy in their interests—we can tell that from his conduct over the last few days, and certainly he is dedicated to ripping away the services that they need. We will ensure that the budget comes to surplus next year; the Leader of the Opposition sits there with his $70 billion black hole, slashing services to working families.

I thank the Leader of the Opposition for his question. It was an attempt at distraction, but the question still remains for the Leader of the Opposition to answer: when did he first know Qantas was grounding its fleet, and why didn't he answer the questions about it at his press conference? Why not? There is no point yelling about it now. Go out and tell the truth.