Labor’s contempt for Parliament & the people on display in week of shame

24/08/11

The Hon Warren Truss MP

Today Julia Gillard pulled the pin on Question Time after just one question from the Opposition. She and her Ministers, tails between their legs, scurried from the House of Representatives in a Convoy of Incompetence to the sanctuary of their parliamentary offices.

Far from scrutiny and even further from the public that government members so disdainfully ridiculed earlier this week, the Prime Minister and Labor MPs ran from the battle and burned shoe leather as they fled.

“What an extraordinary scene we have just witnessed: the Prime Minister of this country and all her ministers walking out at the very beginning of Question Time after taking only one question for the day,” Mr Truss said as Labor MPs deserted the chamber and their responsibilities.

“They have run away from any kind of questioning - any scrutiny - by the Australian Parliament. They are so worried about the personal affairs of the Member for Dobell that they are not prepared to be here to stand up and answer the simplest of questions.

“The Prime Minister is not prepared to take the 10 minutes offered to her to explain her situation to the people of Australia. They have run out of this parliament and closed down question time.

“Have we ever seen anything like it? But have we ever seen a government anything like this one? It is a disgrace to the Australian people. It is a disgrace to the democracy of our land – a bad government with bad policy delivering bad outcomes. And now they run away from scrutiny.

“Over the last couple of weeks, people have travelled in convoys from all across our continent to Canberra to have their voices heard. They came from the Kimberleys, from north Queensland, from Darwin, from Victoria, from Western Australia and from all over this country at considerable personal expense and inconvenience.

“Many had never been to Canberra before. Most of them had certainly never been in a protest, but they know that the future of our country is at risk… they wanted their voices heard in the national capital. But they received the same treatment from this government as the Parliament got today.

“Adding insult to injury, the Minister for Infrastructure and Transport (Anthony Albanese) dubbed them ‘the convoy of no consequence’. Not to be out done in the arrogance and dismissive stakes, the Member for Wills (Kelvin Thomson) shamefully derided the older people in the protest as the ‘convoy of incontinence’.

“What sort of politician is so disrespectful of people as to denigrate those who have come here to have their rightful say? Nasty, spiteful types unfit for public office I would suggest.”