Tim Wilson
Goldstein · Liberal Party · Australia
“Now, we see even more immoral leadership as the Prime Minister and his ministers refuse to audit whether federal money has found its way into the hands of organised crime through the CFMEU Labor cartel.”
“The silence that we heard from our prime minister and our national leaders every step of the way led to horrific incidents like, on 10 November, the protests at the front of Central Shule in Caulfield South in the Goldstein electorate. It led eventually to the most horrific terrorist incident on our most famous national beach.”
“The idea that you would put the social solidarity of the most marginalised section of our community on a ballot paper knowing it would fail is an abrogation of leadership and responsibility and something I do not think this prime minister will ever be able to shake.”
“I've recently been spending a lot of time thinking about what moral government is and what type of government seeks to divide citizens, feed corruption and break trust within the community. The short and sharp of it is that it's an immoral government.”
“But to engage in citizenship stacking, where they deliberately went around and targeted electorates and got people to become Australian citizens on the eve of a national poll, is absolutely disgraceful.”
“There is hope. We can have a moral government again that's focused on uniting Australians and building trust and taking Australia forward together. But the only way we can do that is by seeing a change of government and the end of the Albanese government.”
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“When we saw the members of the 1980 Olympic team in parliament this week and celebrated their incredible achievements, it was not for the Labor Party to mimic it and seek to get a gold medal in declines in household income collapse, but that is the lived reality that Australians are experiencing. We also, of course, have the reality for small businesses. Again, aggregate data disguises and covers the lived reality. We have the biggest number of collapses and insolvencies for small businesses in Australian history. I notice that those opposite have suddenly gone very silent.”
“The Albanese government, despite its boasts and despite the incredible amount of public expenditure, has not actually seen a real and material lift in household income in this country. Instead, people have experienced decline through stagnation—and, of course, we know the curse of inflation that has been there. We are all happy, of course, to see any change off those peaks, but there is a reality that is not translating to rising standards of living. So what we're seeing from the Albanese government is a gold medal for the collapse in household income.”
“It's actually about getting a fair day's pay for a fair day's work. And of course we know there is a lived reality in this country. There is a per capita recession where Australians are working harder, and it does not matter how hard they work; they are not getting ahead. It doesn't matter what the aggregate data says. It doesn't matter what the speeches from those opposite say. It is not achieving the objective and the lived reality of Australians. There is a simple reason for this, and this has been established by international benchmarks; it's not just something that the opposition is raising. Australia has had the biggest drop in household income in the developed world since 2022, which happens to coincide uniquely—by chance!—with the election of the Albanese government.”
“I begin by saying I think it's wonderful that we have a member of the House here who says they represent people who pour beers. As somebody who's pulled beers in their past, I think it's an important part of the Australian story: beer, and pulling it and drinking it. But central to that is to create jobs and economic opportunity for the next generation of Australians. We have a challenging reality right now, and unfortunately the Australian Bureau of Statistics is not a friend of the current government when it comes to unemployment data, as we have seen. Unemployment is on this upward trajectory, which is normally not a very good sign for Australians who want to get ahead and want to get their first foot on the economic ladder of this nation. But it's not just about getting a job.”
“Small businesses employ millions of Australians. They are the backbone of the Australian economy, the basis on which the next generation of Australians get their aspiration, hope and opportunity for the future. Bill, as amended, agreed to.”
“At the end of the day, it is your legislation, not mine. You are running a scare campaign to justify it. Then you are turning around and saying it has no impact at all. I don't really understand what the point of that is. We are left in this quandary where one minute it's a necessary provision to protect penalty rates, which are deeply under threat; the next minute it's having no impact at all. And we are all very confused. I get it's confusing for the parliament, and I get it's confusing for the minister, because we are all confused. The question now for us is: how many of the small businesses that operate across this country will be impacted by this legislation? This has been the question at every point; I asked it at the first briefing I had with the minister, and she still cannot answer it.”
“At every point, all we are doing, in an environment where we have record insolvencies, is trying to provide a pathway for consultation with small business to understand what the impact of the legislation will be and how many will be impacted. Then the minister comes in here and says we refuse to reveal our position on penalty rates. Well, I don't know how to make it any clearer. The coalition supports penalty rates. For repetition. I will say it, through the Speaker, to the minister directly: the coalition supports penalty rates. Now that we've resolved that issue, the question that we have to deal with is: how many small businesses are going to be impacted? The minister seems to want to ask me questions about that. While I am very flattered by that question, Minister, the reality is you have the department and the capacity to do it.”
“The second part was, 'How many people are going to be impacted by this legislation?' Nobody had an answer to that, and they had done no study on how many small businesses would be impacted. It's her decision to make that answer up. I would have just said, 'Well, we've actually done the work and actually figured out how many people are going to be impacted by it.' Then it was: 'What's the engagement around, particularly, small business?' She's listed out large industry associations and, of course, the trade union movement. The trade union movement has always been consulted, and I bet you they're on speed dial and probably SMSing the minister now. The minister has gone and consulted them but not small business.”
“The question was asked in the context of people saying that this might be the basis on which small businesses' backs are broken and how many small businesses would lose their pathway going forward—no answer. The minister was very open in talking about this legislation with me, and I've been very open and honest with people in saying: 'Yes, we had a briefing. It was a constructive briefing.' We had a constructive briefing. There were a simple series of questions, and both she and all of her staff were there. What were the simple questions? The minister can attest to this. I asked, 'Has the regulatory impact statement been completed?' No. She has confirmed this publicly, so I don't see why it's such a big problem.”
“I see you chuckling there, Minister, but the reality is that we face a situation where small businesses across the country feel like they have no voice and they have been abandoned by this government and the minister, as well as by the minister for small business. We raised a series of questions. The security industry is saying, 'What is going to be the impact on us?' and I asked a simple question about whether the minister had looked into that—no answer. We asked a simple question about how many teenagers would be at risk of losing their jobs, after a mother contacted us and talked specifically about how there was a risk that there would be a disincentive to their teenage daughter getting a job. We asked how many teenagers would lose their job—no answer.”
“We just heard another one of the oratory flourishes from the minister in the context of her legislation. We asked a series of questions, which are not my questions; they're actually questions of ordinary Australians. They're questions that are being put forward by ordinary Australians into this parliament because the minister refuses to do a regulatory impact statement, refuses to have a committee and has explicitly voted against the pathway to have an inquiry into her own legislation after there were deep deficiencies and sloppy drafting and after it was criticised by industry as being badly drafted, to the point where she has now amended her own legislation to address the limitations of the legislation.”
“It's not bosses that are burning people out; it's the current Labor governments, especially the one in Victoria, putting more and more costs into small business, so small-business owners have got no choice but to cut, and the easiest place to cut is, of course, labour. There are a lot of people working longer hours and harder to make up the difference. Has the minister looked into these issues? Lastly, if not a death sentence for some, this could also mean the difference between employment and unemployment for currently unemployed workers. It's fairly clear that Labor cares more about satisfying the unions by strengthening their monopoly on IR, rather than supporting small business. Of course, this is no surprise as they are all trade unionists.”
“Should the upcoming legislation interfere with the roster system, we would be forced to revert to six-hour shifts each night.' The question for the minister is: have you looked at the impact on the security sector, particularly at the impact it might have on rosters? Fifthly, people forget that the price of their goods at the supermarkets are inflated to compensate for this variation in wages over the weekend, and, for supermarkets, I think penalty rates come in at about 6 pm. I think the argument from the unions would be that they are unsociable hours. We work out what goods would cost if they added on penalty rates, and that's what small business then has to pay. Of course it has a direct impact on things like the price of coffee et cetera. Sally McManus was on television this morning complaining about bosses burning their staff out.”
“Fourthly: 'The security industry, for many years, has operated on 12-hour shifts. This allows for maximum time off and family friendly rosters—a very important thing, I might add. Currently our security patrol officer works seven 12-hour shifts each fortnight. We pay the night shift allowances and Saturday, Sunday and public holiday rates on these days when they are worked. We do not pay overtime on the 12-hour shifts as the advantage to the employee is a trade-off benefit. Currently, a security officer on the standard roster earns about $87,000 a year, working for less than six months of the year.”
“Secondly: 'Industrial relations can be a great thing to protect workers rights when done in moderation; however, when there are too many hurdles or cost hikes for small businesses, they often go broke and then—guess what?—they have to lay off staff.' Can the minister advise the House what assessment has been completed on the number of people who will be laid off as a consequence of this legislation? Thirdly, as a separate issue: 'I am a parent of a teenager who has actively looked for employment. As an employer and when I speak to other employers there's a real disincentive to employ younger workers. It's certainly something my daughter is experiencing.' The question for the minister is: how many younger workers will be put off as a consequence of this legislation?”
“Big businesses have accountants and HR personnel—things small business can't afford. At present, we have good businesses closing down which can't sell. No-one wants the stress, pressure and long hours for what is now little reward. It's easier to have a government job with shorter hours, large penalty rates, holidays, sick leave et cetera.' The question from that point, Minister, is: how large would an HR department need to expand to under this legislation for a small business?”
“I have a question directly for the minister in relation to this legislation. As we have outlined already, the minister has not engaged with small business on the impact of this legislation—and she has literally just voted to shut down pathways and the regulatory impact statement—so we have done her job for her. We've had a number of people contact us who have questions they want to ask of the minister, and I will read out some of the questions that we are now going to put to her and that we'd like answers to. Firstly: 'Small businesses require owners to work in the business, to be bookkeepers, to know all tax laws, to know all work-care laws, to know all retail and wage laws and to make sure everything is on paper. The penalties are great if this work is not done.”
“All I can implore is that, in considering this legislation, the Prime Minister wakes up and the Labor backbench stand up, because we need a health system that will actually meet the challenges of the future of this country, and we're not getting it under the timidity, lack of ambition and, frankly, lack of courage of the Labor members opposite.”
“It's always nice the first time you go in there. I do understand that as well. But part of the challenge of being a member of parliament is that sometimes you have to speak truth to power, and when the Prime Minister is misleading the public, you've got to say, 'PM, it's not right.' The people paying the price on the ground are Australians who can't access health services and are having to make choices between that, their rent, feeding their kids and, of course, making sure they put food on the table.”
“He's not getting the feedback loop, including from some Labor members who are qualified general practitioners themselves, who would knock on the door and say: 'Prime Minister, I know you keep flashing your Medicare card around the House of Representatives in question time. I know you're proud of it, and I get it—we all believe in Medicare and its role in the healthcare system. We've got a problem. People are going to their GP clinic, and it's not being redeemed. People are going there, and the clinics are asking where their credit card is so they can access the services.' I know it must be very uncomfortable for Labor's new members to have that conversation. It's intimidating; it's a big office, and it's flashy. They've decorated it. They've put lots of nice flags in there and that sort of thing.”
“When you can't deliver what you promise, the public starts to lose trust and faith in our institutions. That's one of the reasons the Prime Minister has been vetting and vetoing all of these new Labor members' first speeches, taking out anything about policy or detail that makes them interesting. The Prime Minister has this obsession with control. He wants to control everything. He wants to control his government. He has all these new Labor members of parliament, and it makes him feel like he's unlimited in his power. But there is a reality that sits behind that which means that he simply has no capacity to go on and deliver.”
“That is the political reality. Going through all the first speeches of all the new Labor members, as I have been doing—it's always an interesting and fascinating insight. I haven't gotten to all the Labor members who were in the last parliament, but I'll get there—don't worry. An honourable member interjecting— You appreciate that—that's right! I know the Labor members opposite appreciate that. I've said to the Labor members opposite, 'I will send you a copy of mine in return.' But a lot of them talked about health care and Medicare in the process. They talk about how it's so important and how it's part of why they became Labor. I have some sympathy for their commitment to it, but the problem we've got is that what they're delivering is not living up to it.”
“I saw him do it on television, so it must be good, because if the Prime Minister says it's going to work, it's going to work.' But, of course, they go and do the effective equivalent of a tap and go at their local GP clinic, and the clinic says, 'Here's the top-up payment—the co-payment.' And they say: 'But the Prime Minister said I wasn't going to have to do that. The Prime Minister said in question time that it was going to work.' In any other profession you'd say that was misleading and deceptive conduct. You'd be off to the ACCC. But it's not so for this government. Tap and go on Medicare doesn't work, and he's getting away with it because so many of his new Labor colleagues are actually deeply afraid to challenge this prime minister and the Minister for Health and Ageing for their limitations and failings.”
“Without meaningful support or meaningful outcomes, when you go to use it, it's like with bankcards. Some of the members over the other side have those cards—I've seen them in your wallets sometimes. These days you actually get them on your phone as well—you can tap them at the supermarket or any other retail outlet. You tap them, and, if you don't actually have the money that sits behind them, they don't work. There's this thing called 'declined'. You've heard of that, Member for Riverina? You have! That's kind of how Australians are engaging with Medicare right now. They go to a doctor and say: 'I would like to redeem this card, the plastic one. The Prime Minister holds it up in question time! I saw him on television!”
“We know more and more GP clinics are not bulk-billing; we've seen a decline in the number of those, so Australians are finding it harder and harder. The irony is the people they claim to want to represent—which are those from lower socioeconomic communities—are the ones most badly hit. We need to be realists. We need to start being honest with the Australian community about where our health system is. Once you start being honest and know where you are, you can at least have a conversation on how we're going to fix it. Unfortunately, the government aren't prepared to have that conversation because they think the answer is a bit of plastic they can wave around in question time. That is not the answer to the problem that Australia's healthcare services face.”
“He could hold it up 100 per cent more times in question time if he wanted to; it doesn't change the outcome. The reality is, having a Medicare card and being able to use your Medicare card are slightly different things, and the Prime Minister hasn't quite figured that bit out. That's part of the limitations of this government. They like to talk, they like to scare, they like to campaign and they like the politics, but they don't like the governing bit so much. That's what we're now living with and that's what Australians are living with. Australians have only one of two choices: either deny themselves access to health services—and that has a long, downstream consequence—or turn up and pay with their Medicare card. The promise they were sold does not match the reality that they live.”
“They're going to their local doctor, and the answer from the government is, 'You should be able to get it bulk-billed.' But access to fully bulk-billed doctors is quite limited, and, despite the promises of the government, since the Albanese government was elected we have seen a decline in the volume of people who are successful in getting things bulk-billed. There's an 11 per cent decline. This is the tragic reality. The promise and the reality are completely different things. Now, 45 per cent of Australians are paying more out of their own pocket to see a GP than they were when we were last in government. It doesn't matter how many times the Prime Minister held it up—he can hold it up 45 per cent more times; it's not going to change that.”
“It's not about what I want or what you want or what the opposition wants; it's about the government's own data to reflect on the number of Australians using Medicare, and when they go and say, 'I need to access health services,' often in urgent circumstances—often, frankly, when they're facing other challenges in their lives, like the cost-of-living pressure. They go to the supermarket and are already having to make a decision on whether they can afford what's in the trolley. Then they've got kids who are sick.”
“Let's go to primary care and what needs to be provided by the Albanese Labor government.' They like to crow about certain urgent care clinics et cetera. They hold them up and say, 'This is the perfect answer to everything,' but the reality is it's part of—at best—a bandaid solution to a much bigger problem. The Prime Minister is very fond of it; he likes that Medicare card. He likes to bring it out in question time and show it around. It like a little totem that he thinks gives him some sort of licence, or magic powers, like he designed the system. Then, all of a sudden, he can take full ownership of it and he wants to own this conversation. Actually, we have seen a reality under this government; we have seen an 11 per cent reduction in the number of people using bulk-billing under this government.”
“If you go to a public hospital, you are increasingly concerned about whether you are going to go in and be at risk of co-morbidities or other conditions and whether you'll get into certain types of services, particularly what is deemed elective surgery. I hear from my South Australian colleagues that, despite all the promises from the Malinauskas Labor government, their health services are a complete bin fire despite the promises that they were going to fight ramping and everything else. Nothing has gone in the right direction. It's like the broader conversation around the economy under this government, but that's getting to another topic. They you get to the federal government and say: 'Okay, the states are failing; the state Labor governments are failing on access to tertiary services.”
“They literally have to fly into communities to get blood tests, then fly out, then send back medicine later to be able to help support people managing their conditions. This is a big problem that has other big costs and problems that flow down from it that then mean, because of the inefficiencies of access to these types of services, like pathology, more of the health budget is consumed where it shouldn't be. Of course, we also know that this is a much bigger story about the limitations of health care under this government and, frankly, under the state Labor governments. Victoria is a classic example. We basically have the complete collapse of our hospital system.”
“There is inequity in accessing and getting the best healthcare outcomes. This is something we take very seriously, Deputy Speaker Boyce. I know it is very important in your electorate as well. To understand that, you have to understand what happens outside of capital cities. That is often a challenge for the current government, which has taken a casual disinterest in health care outside of capital cities in this country. One of the limitations of services outside of capital cities is pathology centres and pathology services. You want to go into remote Indigenous communities and look at the limitations they have to accessing pathology services. The Royal Flying Doctor Service has to deal with this all the time.”
“Access to health services quickly becomes quite limited and often dire. I want to congratulate the new member for Grey on his first speech last night, where he talked explicitly on the limitations of access to health services once you're outside of capital cities. It's something I'm very mindful of and something that I know the member for Riverina, who is here in the chamber with me, is also very concerned about. When we're talking about limitations on access to health service in rural and regional areas—and, I might clarify, often in lower socioeconomic parts of capital cities—you have inequity in provision of health services, which ultimately extends out to diminishing quality of life, particularly towards the later stage of your life. In addition, there are limits on services, which means you spend more time waiting.”
“As a consequence of that, people need more testing to make sure that they're keeping up with their existing medical conditions, managing things like medicine regimes and working more and more with their doctors. That's why primary care is such an important part of facilitating healthcare services where people need support and assistance in community rather than escalating things up to tertiary hospitals and, of course, why it's so important to have access to services within the community, including pathology testing. We have a massive gap in Australian society right now. We have relatively well-serviced electorates in inner urban areas—particularly those that are affluent—but so many communities are less well off, particularly once you get outside of capital cities and into rural and regional areas.”
“I rise to support the bill. It's wonderful to be here supporting legislation that's looking specifically at the challenges of the pathology sector, because it's so important for making sure that Australians get access to the health services they need and, of course, for making sure Australians are in a position to get the tests at the time and stages of their lives when they need them. We know a huge number of health services are coming under increasing stress and demand as a consequence of an ageing population. The consequence of that is, of course, that more Australians are living longer. We all agree that this is a wonderful thing. The trade-off from that is that costs continue to escalate in the context of the health sector. In particular, the costs of structures are shifting more towards management of chronic conditions.”
“Well, Labor won the election, so I've written to the Minister for Sport and the Minister for Infrastructure, Transport, Regional Development and Local Government and the Treasurer seeking the urgent delivery of this $1.8 million. Young women playing footy deserve a fair go—to have decent facilities equal to men. Ministers, Treasurer, it's time to deliver. Women's footy deserves a fair go and dignity. It's not fair that women miss out. I seek leave to table a copy of the letter to the ministers and the Treasurer. Leave granted. I table the letter.”
“Goldstein residents were dismayed that, despite promises otherwise over the previous three years, the community was sidelined. The reality was lived in October 2022 under the federal budget. The Albanese government slashed $100 million of infrastructure funding from Bayside and Glen Eira. Once slashed, Goldstein was promised we'd recoup the funding, but we got nada, zero, zip. At the 2022 and 2025 elections, we announced funding for Wilson Storage Trevor Barker Oval in Sandringham to upgrade the women's change rooms. Shamed by inaction and for, of course, ripping funding out of the community, Labor then moved to match the funding.”
“They shut down the pathway for people outside this chamber who had constructive things to say to improve the laws of this country from having input. Our hope is that this is fixed in this next chapter. But, frankly, it is over to the government, because they have not been willing participants in this conversation. There's not just declining confidence in the minister but, in addition to that, declining confidence that the government is actually interested in listening to industry about how it can improve workers' conditions, flexibility and wages. It's such an important thing to do. I understand it requires some people to step back and to accept that maybe not everything is being done on their terms. But I can tell you that, if you do, the workers and the small businesses of this nation will thank you.”
“Because in the absence of an agenda that actually focuses on rising standards of living and finding a pathway to achieve raising standards of living, their only pathway forward is to go to the bottom of the barrel, find a new low in the trough, and think, 'If you mine and harvest that, somehow you're going to get a better outcome.' That's a short-term political hit. It's absolutely a short-term sugar hit. It doesn't solve any of the fundamental structural problems. And now we face a situation where the government, increasingly concerned about the sloppy nature of its drafting of its own legislation, is concerned about the process that its own minister has gone through. Time, patience and cooperation would have fixed it, but when they were asked for that in this chamber, they shut people's voices down.”
“A partnership between small business and workers is how you're going to boost productivity growth, not laws and intimidation, and certainly not by adding more costs, more regulations that have one purpose: to take money out of the pockets of workers and fund industrial relations lawyers, accountants and back-end HR departments for local corner stores, home businesses and, of course, web based businesses and the full spectrum of startup side hustles and shared-equity schemes across this country. Why would Labor want to do this?”
“My only hope is that, in that other ethereal place called the Senate chamber, Labor might back down from its attempt to silence and shut out other voices. They might actually provide the pathway for input, not just from the opposition but, hey, even from some of the other minor parties, and, of course, from the small businesses of this nation so that they can have a say in their future, their destiny and their opportunity to employ Australians. Then they can call out the limitations of Labor's agenda.”
“Instead, we have a government that is seeking to kneecap at every single point small businesses and workers to come to arrangements on their own mutual benefits and their own mutual terms—undermining pay increases, undermining employers, undermining the independent work regulator they set up to determine these things, all in pursuit of a scare campaign of a problem that didn't exist. In addition to that, in a parliament where, as far as I've counted of late, everyone supports penalty rates, and against a backdrop of a minister who isn't on top of her brief, who has done a sloppy version of drafting her legislation and who is increasingly not confident enough to stand up and make the case for us. Now the parliament faces a choice.”
“The sneaky answer to this is, 'Well, that's it; we'll just get the unions to come in and do it for you.' You lose agency over your business, you lose agency over your employees, and you become appropriated by the vast network of the Labor Party and its various arms or, more correctly put, the ACTU's arms and, of course, its political arm, which is the Australian Labor Party. But this does nothing for growth. It does nothing for activity. It does nothing to improve Australian industry. It does nothing for future generations of Australians. It does nothing for workers, particularly because right now we have this massive problem where people need arrangements of work. One of the key ways you get productivity enhancement is when people do things because they're happy and because it actually works for them.”
“It's a simple proposition: if the Department of Employment and Workplace Relations can't figure out drafting, and then, in addition to that, how to implement Labor's industrial relations agenda and can't even pay its own workers right, then how is the person running the milk bar, the home business, the corner store, the local florist—without an HR department, without a bureaucracy and with thousands of pages mounting every single day—supposed to figure out how Labor's laws are going to work. We shouldn't forget that this is how these laws are designed, because, of course, Labor has a very clever, actually, but sneaky answer to this.”
“Australians need confidence in laws around workplace relations and employment now more than ever. We are now at an impasse where there is legislation before the parliament; industry is saying it's not going to do the job it's designed to do; we all support penalty rates; we have the minister not really confident that her legislation is up to chop; and we're faced with this reality of considering it in detail before we go on and vote accordingly. The challenge for every member in this House is what it is we seek to do and what is the way forward. The key thing is we need to make sure that we have a path to get the voice of small business into this parliament as part of this conversation.”
“We had the Leader of the House come in. He blustered and he bluffed and everybody laughed and it was all very entertaining for the 94 government members of the House, because half of it's a confidence game. You've got to show there's not actually a problem when there's actually a very serious problem. Anyway, we got there. They voted against an inquiry; they voted to silence and shut out the small businesses of this country. Well, we're now being asked to vote on legislation that I don't think this government has any confidence in. I don't think the government has any confidence in their minister. This is like day one basically, or week one effectively, of the government actually getting on with its agenda. If this is where we are now, it's a pretty poor sign of things to come.”
“I think that's the point at which the minister would have just hung up. I get why. It would have been difficult. You have people saying it's sloppy legislation, poorly drafted and isn't going to have the desired effect. It will actually undermine workers. And this is the legislation that we, as a parliament, are now being asked to consider. It's even worse than that because of course we then, as the opposition—actually in a very constructive way—come into this chamber and say: 'You know you've got that committee that does inquiries into things like laws around employment? You changed the name of it, but it still exists. It existed in the last parliament; it exists in this one. Can we do a little inquiry to tidy up the neat little problems you've got with your legislation and your sloppy drafting?' We then went through the hoopla.”
“This is what I put you in the job for!' Of course, the minister would have to respond and say, 'Well, hang on, Prime Minister'—I'm on hold, Deputy Speaker. And then she'll come back and say: 'We didn't actually check. We didn't check how many millions of Australian small businesses might be impacted by these laws, how many might be exposed or at risk or go under.' The Prime Minister, not unreasonably, would turn around and say, 'Minister, I don't think you're on top of your job.' I think it's even worse than that. You're the Prime Minister and you're sitting there saying, 'And why are they saying the legislation's poorly drafted and sloppy?' 'We haven't actually done the work.' This is at the point where—you know sometimes when some people just hang up because it's easier than having to answer a difficult question?”
“Why is this law, that we thought we had an electoral mandate to just smash out, not going the way we thought it would?' And, of course, the minister would say: 'Well, you know, Prime Minister, we drafted the laws; we're doing what our scare campaign was intended to do. We're just bringing it into effect. We're doing exactly what you wanted us to do.' But the Prime Minister asks a simple question: 'Where's the regulatory impact statement, Minister? It's a simple question the media's asking us, and you can't answer it.' 'Well, Prime Minister, we didn't do one.' The Prime Minister is, of course, going to turn around and say, 'Well, what about this question of small businesses? How many small businesses are going to be impacted? Surely you know the answer.”
“Then, of course, the Minerals Council—the industry that actually creates wealth for the country—says: The government's changes will reduce productivity and compromise Australia's competitiveness in global export markets. The laws are also becoming a decisive material factor in whether new projects proceed or not, and whether billions of dollars in investment capital is invested in Australia or elsewhere. So it undermines growth, undermines workers, undermines independence, undermines flexibility and, of course, has sloppy drafting. We're at the point where the Prime Minister's probably sitting around in his little bunker over there in the ministerial wing. He picks up the phone to the minister, (02)6277—I can't remember the rest of the numbers for the minister's phone—and says: 'Hey, Minister, this isn't going well.”