Wednesday, 27 November 2024

Opposition performance

Tim RICHARDSON (Mordialloc) (16:16): It is great to rise for the grievance debate and acknowledge and grieve for Victorians if the divisive, destructive, hateful, shapeshifting, charlatan opposition was ever to form government in Victoria. I thought I was going to be up first, but I got to listen to the Leader of the Opposition in full flight. I saw more people on their phones over on that side and more people up and about for the member for Brighton and when the new Leader of the Nationals came in than for any of that. There was no heartbeat. My Apple Watch heart alert went off at one stage – it said, ‘You’re a bit excited, member for Mordialloc. Just calm down a bit,’ because I was up and about for the Leader of the Opposition’s contribution. But no-one on that side had any care. Half of them were on their phones, because they know that they stand for nothing on that side. They shapeshift, they change tack, they change direction to suit their own political narrative.

You have got to ask yourself how the Liberal Party, after the stellar leadership and performance and after the election of Bolte, Hamer and Thomson, have found themselves here today. When you organise a protest like we do, or a rally, we have Victorians rock up. When those opposite organise a protest or rally, they have neo-Nazis rock up, and that is not by accident or design, and it is not just in recent times. Once again, if Nazis think it is worth rocking up to your protest, then maybe you should have a look at the protest that you have organised. We have seen time and time again –

The SPEAKER: Order! Member for Mordialloc, through the Chair.

Tim RICHARDSON: We have seen time and time again, Speaker, actions of those opposite that are absolutely deplorable. It goes back further than what we saw on the steps of Parliament recently with the member in the other place. It goes back to 2018 when the then Shadow Attorney-General, now Leader of the Opposition, was on the charge around the surge in what he called African gangs. At that time the now Leader of the Opposition Peter Dutton in the federal Parliament and the Leader of the Opposition here were on a unity ticket. They were saying that because of our African community you could not go out in Victoria. Remember when they said that African gangs were across our communities and demonised newly arrived migrants and refugees in our community and put them all in one basket? Where have we seen that kind of divisive and hateful politics in our state? That is not the leadership that Victorians ask for. To my astonishment, the other week I was at an African festival at Federation Square, and I saw some of those members of Parliament championing and saying how great the African communities of the 54 nations of that continent have been for Victoria. Only six years ago they were attack fodder for their divisive political narrative. This is the consistent frame that we see from the Liberal Party. We see some engagement in treaty from the Nationals, and I will get to that. But we see consistently hate and division.

Where else have we seen neo-Nazis rock up? At the Victorian Pride Centre. We saw neo-Nazis lined across the entrance of the Pride centre. Where has the hateful speech that we have seen demonise people in the LGBTIQA+ communities come from? It has not come from the Labor Party. It has not. We have stood in solidarity, supporting people for who they are and showing love and compassion. We saw Nazis rock up there. We saw the United Patriots Front attack African communities on the beaches of St Kilda in 2018. Those divisions were stoked by a leadership who hope to lead this state some time in the future, and they cannot be the Victorians we front up to.

Now there is another community that just recently has been used for their political division and rhetoric, the Sikh community. People will think that has come out of nowhere, but it was politically convenient to sow the seeds of division and hate for a moment in time. It is a consistent theme that we see from those opposite. Consistently we see shapeshifting on policy. Remember when there was a bipartisan supported principle on voice, truth and treaty? It was not until after the results of the Voice referendum, where the only member that showed leadership on that side was the member for Kew, that we saw a low road taken and demonising and harmful impacts on Victorians and our First Nations people come to be. That is the kind of division that we see, those are the kinds of attacks that we see. It is an inconvenient truth. It is not a modern centre-right Liberal Party, it is a populist party that is chasing the preferences of One Nation, of the United Australia Party and of the Freedom Party. That is the coalition that they have formed that has absolutely slayed their primary vote. It used to be in the low 40s, now it is struggling in the mid-30s.

Members interjecting.

The SPEAKER: Member for Nepean, you are not in your place. Member for Polwarth, you are not in your place.

Tim RICHARDSON: When you see that kind of behaviour, and when you see at polling booth after polling booth after polling booth them handing out their same flyers together and sharing their volunteer muscle across their movements, you know exactly what this is about. This is about sowing populist hate on minority communities or diverse communities, and their suffering and their impact means nothing to the aspirations of the Liberal Party.

I do not know how someone like Ted Baillieu, who was centre right and got them into government in 2010, can look at that party. In fact family members of the Baillieus cannot look at that party anymore and have left and are running candidates that destroy the Liberals’ councils and federal and state seats. We can see it being sowed again across Hawthorn. We will see this once again, and the Leader of the Opposition may not even be here in his own seat with some of the polling and some of the numbers that those teal candidates have. They used to be socially progressive, economic conservative liberals. They have had an absolute annihilation of the party. They are no longer a liberal party; they are a populist conservative party. That is how they are formed and where they are going right now.

It is not just us saying this. It is not just us who see this. We see the now Leader of the Nationals, whose first instinct after 2022 was to question the legitimacy of their coalition agreement. It was an honest moment. Obviously going from Siberia and in the freezer then back to redemption and now being the Leader of the Nationals has been a long journey, but that is where the Leader of the Nationals has found himself now. We wish him well and good luck. But in a moment of clarity and truth the Leader of the Nationals saw how absolutely dysfunctional this crew are. I mean, of all the situations you could find, you could not imagine a circumstance where a modern party would have half and half of their party room literally opposing each other in court, literally lining up and giving evidence. I could not have imagined a circumstance where the Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party thinks it is appropriate behaviour to record his leader. How on earth is that appropriate behaviour that says that you can still lead? That is the kind of trust deficit that those opposite have amongst themselves, let alone what we think. I mean, the irony is that there are people on that side who despise the Leader of the Opposition more than any of the most critical members of Parliament in the Labor caucus.

There are people on that side who absolutely backgrounded heavily only a few weeks ago, trying to bring on a challenge. If you have such a trust deficit in the people that are meant to support you and be united in a policy position going forward, then how can Victorians trust you? When you promise something in a negotiation to someone and then you go and blindside them and record them and that trust deficit exists, how can any Victorian into the future trust anything you say? When you change your position on policy over and over again on how you support diverse communities, how you support our First Nations communities, how you front up to pride marches and then you are demonising people in the LGBTIQA+ communities, how could anyone ever trust you? This is the modern Liberal Party that we see now and the trust deficit that Victorians clearly have with this mob.

There are a couple of other things I want to raise on some of the grievance matters raised by the Leader of the Opposition. There is a discussion around where the economics of the state are. This is a state that has built the intergenerational infrastructure for the future. This is a Leader of the Opposition who was nestled next to the former federal Treasurer, who during the pandemic took the nation’s debt up to a trillion dollars. A lot of that built up a long time before. You never hear a reflection on the Commonwealth government and former Treasurer Frydenberg or former Prime Minister Morrison. Their debt-to-GDP numbers being in the mid-30s when ours were in the mid-20s – you never hear that, because what did the Treasurer at the time Josh Frydenberg say? ‘The debt that we take on is the cost of saving lives and jobs.’ That was the message that was put forward. The inverse of that is: what would those opposite have done during that time? We know from past form and past history: smash and slay health, cut ambos, cut health services, cut our nurses. We have seen that past behaviour. We saw it under Abbott; we saw it under the Baillieu–Napthine governments. Past form is absolutely a predictor of future behaviour. So when the Leader of the Opposition talks about a debt ceiling, the Leader of the Opposition is talking about savage cuts to services.

The Leader of the Opposition goes from one policy position to another, and the irony of that was when the federal opposition leader the other day completely blindsided the state Leader of the Opposition. Clearly Dutton never speaks to the Leader of the Opposition. There is absolutely a trust deficit, and you can see the federal colleagues who every now and then just run out a bit of backgrounding on how incompetent the leader is and how lacking in trust they are of his leadership. And then the state crew get on board. You can see those that have given evidence are the team that rock up and then background again, and we could go through a litany of quotes.

The federal opposition leader would cut infrastructure funding to Victorians. He has said he would cut infrastructure funding in the billions to Victorians overnight. The Leader of the Opposition in our state cannot work out whether he is opposed to this project, scrapping this project – he has changed; he is such a charlatan and a shapeshifter. We have never seen more positions taken on this. When treaty was taken, African gangs, our Sikh community, infrastructure – it does not matter. It just depends on how Tom Elliott on 3AW presents a question, and he will be agreeable. It is like taking talkback and always saying, ‘You’ve made a good point, you’ve made a good point, you’ve made a good point.’ He just changes his tune to suit the narrative at that time, and we still do not know the position. Is it shelved? Is it cutting contracts in the billions of dollars? Is it opposition leader Dutton’s position that is billions of dollars of cuts into the future? That is the position. Those are the questions. We have that trust narrative and a complete trust deficit.

I will go back to that fundamental point: if your own colleagues, even your Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party, do not trust you in a meeting but need a physical record that is in hand for eight months – that is the trust deficit – how is the average Victorian who wants a house and a hope for a house who is priced out of the market with interest rate rises going to trust the Leader of the Opposition to deliver? When your Deputy Leader of the Liberal Party and the Nationals leader want to break the coalition, do not trust the Leader of the Opposition, how then do you trust them to front up?

There is another key point as well that we have seen, a narrative forming that cul-de-sacs into the point I am making around the elements of neo-Nazis, seeing them cosy up nicely to the Liberal Party. Remember, it is on four occasions that we have got examples where rallies or groups have been organised and neo-Nazis have seen that it is in their interests and policy frame to be united with the modern Liberal Party.

The other key policy area is housing. Let us listen to some of the comments when they run these protests. ‘The changing character and nature of suburbs and communities’ – what is that code for? That is some of the xenophobic language that we see from the leader of the federal opposition.

John Pesutto interjected.

Tim RICHARDSON: The Leader of the Opposition might call me a fool, but maybe he wants to explain to us what ‘African gangs’ was about. What was ‘African gangs’ about, Leader of the Opposition? What was the United Patriots Front doing on St Kilda Beach targeting the African communities in 2018? Graham Ashton at that time warned the Leader of the Opposition and the Shadow Attorney-General at that time that the language and hate that he was seeing in the community were so divisive. That was so divisive. What was said at that time, when the Shadow Attorney-General was being warned about the language he was using? Because he is a shapeshifter; he is a shapeshifter on policy and a charlatan if there ever was one. And when you see the comments around increased housing about the changing character and nature, that it will not feel the same, we have heard those comments before. We have heard those xenophobic comments before around immigration and migration. We see it in the Trumpist politics that attacks migrants, that attacks the 7000 Australians born somewhere else who have contributed to our multicultural community. They should be ashamed, and Victorians will see them for what they are, and they have worked out that the Leader of the Opposition is a lying shapeshifter.

The SPEAKER: I remind members about parliamentary language. That word is not allowed.