MATTERS OF URGENCY

Senator BLYTH (South Australia) (16:03): This prime minister's record is absolutely clear. His record of spending years lecturing Australians about standards, about integrity and about respect. This is the prime minister that said this to the Australian people: No matter who you support in politics, it is completely unacceptable to demean, objectify, belittle or offend women.

It sounds like the Prime Minister can't even keep his own storytelling abilities straight. This is a prime minister who went on a crude podcast. He participated in a joke about melons at the expense of the female prime minister of Japan.

He then decided to try and tell the Australian people: 'You've misunderstood. Perhaps this isn't quite what people thought it was.' He then sent out the female leadership of his own team to try and defend what were revolting comments and gestures from a prime minister—certainly not becoming of a prime minister of a country like Australia. These loyal servants of the Prime Minister went out—these are women who supposedly care about the rights of women and are completely offended when it is anyone else who is doing the offending.

But, no—'We're going to double down, and we're going to protect the Prime Minister and his absolutely disgusting actions.' This goes to the character of a prime minister that has told the Australian people for four years that he would cut electricity by $275. That's a promise that he took to the 2022 election. I don't know about everyone else out there, but I'm still waiting for my $275 reduction.

Instead, I think I've had about a 40 per cent increase. This is a prime minister who makes promises that he does not keep. He is gaslighting the Australian people every time he says: 'Oh, it's not what I meant.

We've changed our mind.' This is the same prime minister who said more than 50 times that he would not touch negative gearing in Australia. Fifty times the Prime Minister said that, and then we got to see the budget that was handed down in May, and guess what? Well, he's had a change of heart.

His word means nothing. This is a prime minister that is now coming after capital gains. This is also a prime minister who keeps telling the Australian people, as do senators from across the way—they get the talking points, and I'm not sure how they regurgitate them because it is absolutely sickening to sit there and say that Australians have never had it so good in this country.

They talk about the fact that wages are rising. The problem is inflation is rising higher and faster than what real wages are, which means Australians are actually working more and earning less. Yet this government, this prime minister, goes out with a straight face and says to the Australian people, 'You have never had it so good.' The Australian people have had enough.

You can tell that the Australian people have had enough because this prime minister is now one of the most unpopular prime ministers. His polling is going into the toilet. Australians watched the Prime Minister stumble off stage during the election campaign.

The Prime Minister got up, after stumbling off the stage, and said, 'Oh, I didn't fall off the stage.' This is that prime minister who then says to the country, when he and Tony Burke were being heckled, that the reception was 'overwhelmingly positive' and there were just a few people who may not have agreed with him. This is a prime minister who says whatever he needs to say to the Australian people.

You cannot believe a single word that this prime minister or this Labor government says. When the Prime Minister says to the Australian people that his word is his bond, the Australian people should rightly be very sceptical of that, because this prime minister has a track record for telling the Australian people one thing and then going and doing the exact opposite.

You cannot trust this prime minister. You cannot trust the government that he leads, because when this prime minister is caught out, there is always an explanation. There's always deflection.

Like any good gaslighter in any kind of toxic relationship, he always puts it back to, 'Oh, you must have misunderstood.' This is a prime minister who is sending out senior ministers to clean up his mess, and Australians have rightly had enough. You cannot trust the Prime Minister. (Time expired)