Mathias Cormann (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment Participation, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

The pressure is really starting to show on that side, isn’t it? The cracks are starting to show, because this is all about ministers not being able to compete for time in this chamber with the absolutely incompetent Minister for Health and Ageing. We have debated for a whole week now a broken promise in the health portfolio which the Labor Party knows will not have the support of this chamber. We have wasted week after week on broken promise after broken promise in the health portfolio. They cannot manage their program and now you have ministers who are starting to crack up because they cannot get time on their agenda. If this legislation is so important why didn’t you put it at the top of the list? Why did you put a piece of legislation at the top of the list which you know does not have the support of the Senate, does not have the support of the Australian people and is not good legislation for the health system?

As your top priority for legislation this week you put forward a piece of legislation which will be bad for our health system and bad for patients across Australia, a broken promise which is there to hide the fact that this government has been an absolute failure in the health portfolio. You have delivered not one jot, not one thing. You promised the world but have delivered next to nothing. We have a minister here who clearly cannot fathom that Nicola Roxon is absolutely dominating the legislative agenda in the Senate, and the government in the Senate cannot get their pieces of legislation up; as a result, they have to resort to desperate tactics. They have to resort to attacking the Manager of Opposition Business in this chamber without foundation. If the minister thinks that his piece of legislation is so important he should tell Nicola Roxon to stop putting forward legislation which clearly does not have the support the Senate.

This is just a stunt. Last year we had to waste weeks because this heartless government wanted to cut patient rebates for cataract surgery in half. Weeks and weeks and weeks of time in the Senate was wasted, and here we go again. I can understand the frustration of Senator Conroy. I can well understand that other ministers are starting to get frustrated because none of their bills can get to the top of the list. Here they are, jumping up and down because they cannot win the debate in their Senate tactics committee. They cannot get the Prime Minister and the Deputy Prime Minister to get them up the list. They have only one strategy: a political strategy to come up with excuses as to why they have been such a failure in the health portfolio. This is all about coming up with a political strategy to justify to the Australian people in the lead-up to the next election why they have been such a failure in the health portfolio. It is nothing more and nothing less. Do you know what? I can understand why Senator Conroy is so frustrated. Clearly, with their failure to properly manage their program and with Nicola Roxon absolutely monopolising legislative time for the government here in the Senate, it must be very bad for him because he cannot get his legislation up. It has nothing to do with us. I absolutely agree with Senator Ronaldson: Senator Conroy should apologise to the Manager of Opposition Business for absolutely having misrepresented him. Apologise, Minister.