Mr ABBOTT (Minister for Health and Ageing) (3:50 PM) —I say to the member for Wills that if he wants to spend weeks and months pursuing the government over this program, let him do it because he will find that this program has been properly administered—and every day, every week and every month that this opposition spends on this topic is a day, a week or a month in which it neglects the real task of an opposition, which is trying to come up with the policies and the programs that the Australian people want for the peace, order and good government of this country. The fundamental flaw with everything which has been said by members opposite in this debate is that if this grant was so outrageous, so wrong, so terrible and so misconceived then why did Labor support it? Labor supported precisely the same project, precisely the same grant that this government has promised to make under appropriate conditions. I remind the rather noisy member for Lalor that Labor's candidate for Dobell, David Mehan, said that Labor would fund the dredging of Tumbi Creek with a commitment of $1.3 million to continue the project. That is $1.3 million which the Labor Party would have us believe now was misguided, wrong and unnecessary. But Labor supported it.

The real story today is not that the government has been effectively and credibly accused of some wrongdoing; the real story today is that the Leader of the Opposition has backed down completely from the accusations that he made yesterday. Let me just remind the House of what the Leader of the Opposition sought to censure the Minister for Local Government, Territories and Roads for yesterday:

(1) blatantly breaching his duty to act honestly—

that is what he said—

(2) seeking to defraud the Commonwealth—

that is what he said—

(3) conspiring with others to defraud the Commonwealth ...

So in this parliament yesterday the Leader of the Opposition came into this House and accused this minister of committing crimes. That is what he did. What does he do today? He comes in and there is no talk about dishonesty, defrauding or conspiracy. What he does today is that he censures the minister for roads for:

(1) failing to abide by the ministerial code of conduct—

no evidence—

(2) failing to give any full and satisfactory explanation of his conduct—

the minister for roads has been on just about every television and radio program, and he has been on his feet for fully half an hour today explaining himself—

(3) failing to disclose documents relevant to the Tumbi Creek affair—

well it has rained documents, thanks to the minister for roads tabling documents; and—

(4) putting grossly improper pressure—

it is alleged—

Why is it that yesterday's criminal conspiracy was converted today into a mere failure to abide by the ministerial code of conduct? I will tell you why this happened—because yesterday the Leader of the Opposition's own colleague the member for Denison, Duncan Kerr SC—senior counsel, learned in the law—completely destroyed the Leader of the Opposition's case that there had been some dishonest criminal conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth. Let me remind the House of what the member for Denison, Duncan Kerr—senior counsel, learned in the law—said yesterday:

He knew—this senior lawyer—

The DEPUTY SPEAKER (Hon. I.R. Causley)—I remind the Leader of the House to refer to members by their seat.

Mr ABBOTT —that what his leader had been saying was complete nonsense, absolutely unsubstantiated by any real evidence. So what we have had today is the face-saving censure. This is the censure that we had to have today, not because there was any new evidence. There was only yesterday's evidence—and yesterday's evidence, as the member for Denison has made clear, never sustained the charges which the Leader of the Opposition was foolish enough to make and for which he should apologise. What we have today is simply a face-saving censure from the recycled Leader of the Opposition to justify the huffing and the puffing yesterday not justified by any new facts or any real argument.

Let us come to the core of the opposition's case here. The opposition claims that this project funding was announced before it was actually made. This is the essential dishonesty at the heart of the opposition's case. As the Leader of the Opposition must have known yesterday, the member for Dobell made no such announcement on 8 June. The member for Dobell's press release of 8 June simply stated that he was seeking to have the government provide funding and that he would support an application for funding.

Mr ABBOTT —And, yes, he said that funding of this type was potentially available under the Regional Partnerships program—as it quite properly is. All he did was quite properly say, as any good local member would, that, if the council put in a grant to the appropriate program, he, the local member, would be only too happy to support it. Just to make it crystal clear, I table the press release of 8 June from the member for Dobell.

Having dealt with that claim, let me now deal with the claim that the email from Mr Hallett somehow constituted a conspiracy to defraud the Commonwealth. There is no doubt that the email from Mr Hallett could have been better worded. There is no doubt that the covering email that Mr Hallett sent was poorly worded. But the fact is that Mr Hallett's email attached the department's advice, and the department's advice explained precisely what had to be done in order for this grant to go ahead. It explained exactly what Wyong council had to do in order for the grant, as announced, to go ahead. And it said that if the project did not go ahead there would be no money and that if the project went ahead in a different form and cost less there would be a reduction in money. It was a perfectly reasonable thing for Mr Hallett to provide to the Wyong council. The mere fact that there was inappropriate or poor wording of the covering email is no reason whatsoever to dispense with the services of this fine minister, who has been a marvellous servant of the people of Robertson and a fine minister of the Crown.

The final point that members opposite have made is that this proposal is to pay for something which no longer needs to be done. The Leader of the Opposition has come in here time and time again and said that the mouth of Tumbi Creek is open. The only mouth that is open is that of the Leader of the Opposition. It is a mouth that is open too often for his own good. Let me make it absolutely crystal clear to members opposite that the mouth of Tumbi Creek is not open. The mouth of Tumbi Creek does require further work. A statement by Mr Kerry Yates, the General Manager of Wyong Shire Council, says:

1,000 cubic metres of silt; that was what was flushed out by the October storm—

Let me make it absolutely crystal clear to the Leader of the Opposition: the mouth of Tumbi Creek is not open. It is blocked by 14,000 cubic metres of silt, and that is precisely why, should Wyong council conclude the arrangement proposed, this remains a perfectly appropriate subject for the Regional Partnerships program.

What we have here and what we have had for the last two days from members opposite is occupational therapy—occupational therapy for an angry and irrelevant opposition. What we have had now over the last couple of days is the Leader of the Opposition back in his comfort zone. Here he is coming into this parliament with his high-pitched histrionics about rorts, not tackling the hard work, not making the difficult decisions that effective leaders of the opposition and credible alternative prime ministers must make.

If the Leader of the Opposition were serious about demonstrating to the Australian people that he is different now from the man who has been comprehensively rejected by the Australian people twice, and by his own party twice, he would be doing the hard yards of demonstrating just what it is that the Australian Labor Party stands for and just who it represents. He would be sorting out where it stands on Medicare Gold; he would be having that difficult discussion with the member for Lalor. He would be sorting out his frontbench. He would be welcoming the member for Melbourne and the member for Canberra back onto his frontbench. But he is not doing that. He is back in his comfort zone, running around this parliament making speeches, making smears, making the kind of accusations that he simply cannot back up with evidence.

Let me just remind this House to judge the Leader of the Opposition not on what he says now but on what he did when he was in government. In this parliament today, he wants to parade as the nation's chief rort buster. That is how he wants to parade himself. I remind the House of what happened back in 1983, when he was the Acting Special Minister of State. Who was responsible for trying to ensure that Senator Mal Colston repaid $6,000 in rorted travel allowance? Who got departmental advice recommending that this matter be referred to the police? None other than the member for Brand, who protected this rort, who protected a rorter and who failed to refer the matter of former Senator Colston to the Australian Federal Police as he had been told.

The Leader of the Opposition says that he is hostile to rorts. He says that he is going to do his best to hold this government to account. If he is really so concerned about rorts, what about the daddy of them all? What about the rolled gold rip-off? What about the greatest rort ever perpetrated in the history of this country, not for the benefit of an electorate or for the benefit of the people of Australia but for the benefit of the Australian Labor Party itself—a rort for the benefit of the Australian Labor Party itself. Why would he be concerned about that rort when it is delivering some $3 million a year in ill-gotten gains into the coffers of the Australian Labor Party? Why would he want to take action against the rort? Let us face it: he was on the national executive of the Australian Labor Party at the time they did the deal. He is one of the authors of the rent rort rip-off.

This Leader of the Opposition has a big job ahead of him. He has to demonstrate that he has changed. He has to demonstrate that he is different. He has to demonstrate that he is different now from the minister for employment who gave us 11 per cent unemployment, the minister for telecommunications who gave us the $4 billion waste of duplicated cable roll-out, the minister for defence who gave us the dud sub and the finance minister who gave us $23 billion of accumulated deficit. That is what he has to demonstrate instead of coming into this parliament with this pumped up charge which even the member for Denison knows has no substance and no foundation whatsoever.

Question put: