Ms GILLARD (Manager of Opposition Business) (4:34 PM) —Of course, we are approaching Christmas and, around Australia at Christmas time, families have certain traditions. Some always put up the Christmas tree on the same date; some always bake the Christmas cake on the same date. Today we are seeing the birth of another important Christmas tradition, and that is the last-sitting-day Minister Abbott fiasco. That is the new Christmas tradition in Australia. Let us remember the last sitting day we were here last year before we went on our Christmas break when Minister Abbott gave a stupid and disgraceful speech which then caused him to be repudiated by the Prime Minister. The first instalment of the Minister Abbott last-sitting-day fiasco was last year when he gave a speech which then led to headlines like these: ‘PM chides Abbott over low blow’, ‘PM bags Abbott’, ‘PM tells Abbott to drop personal jibes’, ‘Abbott told to mind his tongue’ and my personal favourite, ‘Howard tries to break a nasty Abbott’.

Mrs Bronwyn Bishop —Mr Deputy Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The debate concerns the taking note of the paper, which is the report, not a dissertation on what occurred 12 months previously.

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. I.R. Causley)—I have the substance of the point of order. The debate has been fairly free and wide ranging. I call the member for Lalor.

Ms GILLARD —We are now on the second instalment of the tradition of the last-sitting-day fiasco courtesy of Minister Abbott. It is kind of cute that this is the week in which The West Wing came back on Australian TV. Of course, in The West Wing the media advisers all hunker around late on a Friday afternoon. They talk about ‘putting out the trash’. Putting out the trash means late on Friday night they are going to slip out the stories that are so embarrassing for the government that they do not want any coverage of them.

Here we have, in this parliament today, the Australian equivalent of putting out the trash, because so embarrassing is this for the government that they have squeezed it in between a ministerial scandal and Christmas valedictories in the desperate hope that nobody notices. Why is the government so embarrassed? Mr Abbott’s last-sitting-day fiasco is really about this government wasting $4 million of taxpayers’ funds in a completely unnecessary royal commission. It is a first: a royal commission into a royal commission. And this government, for a political stunt, thought it was worth spending $4 million of taxpayers’ money.

This government wasted $71.32 per minute on this inquiry. Australian taxpayers contributed $4 million to this government’s political stunt—a royal commission into a royal commission. It cost $71.32 per minute of the inquiry. All of that money was wasted. They wasted $4 million to find what? Absolutely nothing. The government are putting out the trash today because they are embarrassed that they wasted that $4 million and found absolutely nothing. That is why we are back here with another end-of-sitting-day fiasco courtesy of Minister Abbott.

He must be a deeply embarrassed and sorrowful man today. Consequently, we saw his overacting at the dispatch box to hide his true disappointment. This has been a curious, odd, mad obsession writ large that started in 1994. He proudly announced that the first question he ever asked in this House was about Centenary House. It has been a decade-long obsession starting from the first day he was able to ask questions in this House. We all remember the performances that he used to put on at the end of question time. We used to refer to them as the ‘kicker’ because you would know that question time was about to be brought to an end when Minister Abbott got to his feet. This obsession was so absurd. I have just had a quick look at the statistics and let me tell you that Minister Abbott took 24 questions on Centenary House. Indeed, other government members and senators referred to Centenary House 68 times in questions without notice. This is truly amazing. It is a government out of an agenda and not knowing what to do next. There were 142 speeches made on the matter by government members.

Minister Abbott is in the depths of a decade-old mad obsession that has taken him absolutely nowhere. During the course of this decade-old mad obsession that has taken him absolutely nowhere, Minister Abbott used terminology against the Leader of the Opposition and others like ‘fraud’, ‘fake’ and ‘Tammany-Hall thug’. Today we have seen that bile choking Minister Abbott’s throat because, at the end of his decade-long obsession, having wasted $4 million of taxpayers’ money, he has found absolutely nothing. The Liberal Party stand exposed as having hijacked taxpayers’ funds for their own cheap political stunt. Here they are today, embarrassed and wounded, putting out the trash between a ministerial scandal and valedictories and hoping that no-one notices. Their mad obsession has been brought to an end as a spectacular failure for everybody involved in it.

I think it is a pity that the Attorney-General, as the first law officer, involved himself in this mess. It is one thing for the Leader of the House—who we all know is capable of these acts of obsession, who spent two weeks being hapless and helpless and who almost accidentally destroyed a speaker along way—to be involved in stunts and cheap political tricks like this; it is quite another matter for the chief law officer of the country to stoop so low. I say to the Attorney-General that he ought not to have done so.

Let us be absolutely clear about what this royal commission found—and you need to draw the distinction between what Mr Abbott ranted about and what he actually quoted. The only thing he quoted as a conclusion of the royal commission was that the royal commission used the word ‘inept’. If we were going to have that kind of moral outrage and ranting and raving about ineptness, we would see it in here about the Howard government every day. If there is going to be this kind of obligation put on ineptness, what has the Howard government got to say about accidentally mislaying $8.1 billion of Defence assets? I have not heard an explanation about that. If we want to talk about ineptness, I think mislaying $8 billion worth of stuff might be up there with ineptness. But, of course, we did not see any Howard government ministers’ heads rolling. We did not see any Howard government minister out there saying, ‘There is a moral obligation on the Howard government to resolve the matter of this ineptness—the $8.1 billion of stuff that we have accidentally lost.’ Of course they did not do that. The only thing that the minister could quote was the word ‘inept’, and inept is not a foundation at all for the rest of the speech that he gave in here. All the rest of that speech was flim-flam to try and hide his embarrassment that the bile that he used to spout about this matter is now scalding his throat as it sits there.

As we are about to embark on Christmas holidays—a very important event in the Christian calendar, with the birth of our Lord being celebrated around the world—I say that the Minister for Health and Ageing as well as others in the House might well remember that biblical injunction to not go looking for a speck in your brother’s eye and ignore the log in your own. I remind members of this House of that biblical injunction. Today this government effectively said, ‘The ministerial code of conduct does not matter. Rip that up. There is no code. You can do anything you like. It does not matter.’ The Prime Minister can get up at the dispatch box and say, ‘Yes, the Minister for Veterans’ Affairs breached the code, but code shmode. Who cares? There are no obligations. There are no rules. There are no responsibilities. Nothing happens if you do anything wrong.’

Mr Pyne —Mr Speaker, I rise on a point of order. The debate is about taking notice of the report handed down by the Attorney-General. The member is straying far from the debate in talking about matters in question time today. I ask you to bring her back to the substance of the debate.

The SPEAKER —I am sure the Manager of Opposition Business will come back to the debate.

Ms GILLARD —I am just asking people to take note of the absurd double standards of the Howard government, which says, ‘A breach of the ministerial code does not matter. Regional rorts do not matter. Pork does not matter. That is okay.’ (Time expired)

Debate (on motion by Mr Pyne) adjourned.