TIM WATTS MP

MEMBER FOR GELLIBRAND

E&OE TRANSCRIPT

DOOR STOP
PARLIAMENT HOUSE

TUESDAY 15 MARCH 2016

SUBJECT: SIX MONTHS OF MALCOLM TURNBULL

WATTS: Six months on from Tony Abbott I mean Malcolm Turnbull that’s a Freudian slip there, 6 months on from Malcolm Turnbull being sworn in as Prime Minister of Australia, we see that Mr Turnbull has killed Mr Abbott only to become him. The talented Mr Turnbull has killed Mr Abbott only to become him.

We’ve seen over the last six months Tony Abbott I mean Malcolm Turnbull, clothing himself in the policies of his predecessor Mr Abbott. We have seen him adopting Mr Abbott’s policies on Climate Change and the Direct Action fraud that Mr Turnbull previously felt strongly enough to cross the floor in Parliament about. We’ve seen Mr Turnbull clothing himself in Mr Abbott’s NBN policy to destroy the NBN, to tackle the real NBN Fibre to the Home policy that Labor took to the last election and destroy it to the ground.

And most importantly and most significantly in recent weeks, and most farcically, we have seen Mr Turnbull adopt Mr Abbott’s policy on marriage equality, the farcical plebiscite that’s going to cost Australians $160 million to get, well we don’t know what we’re going to get from it.

The Coalition backbench are falling over each other to reinterpret this promise, some MPs are going to vote according to their constituencies, some are going to vote according to the national vote, and some are going to vote according to what the extremists in the Liberal Party caucus room think.

It’s an extraordinary state of affairs and it’s why we see the farce going on in the Senate at the moment. It’s why we see the Coalition Government doing everything it can to scramble to an early election, because they know over the last six months the Australian people are starting to see through the flash clothes, they are starting to see through the glasses being waved around by the Prime Minister, and they’re starting to see this Government for what it is, a pale imitation of the Abbott Government. A Government that was comprehensively rejected by the Australian people.

So as the Coalition Government struggles to get through to an early election, the Labor Party is growing into an alternative government, with a comprehensive suite of policies that we are ready to take to the Australian people. Thank you.