ADJOURNMENT

Mr HOGAN (Page—Deputy Manager of Opposition Business) (16:50): It's great to be here speaking while you are in the chair, Mr Speaker. I know you always sit in the chair towards the end of the daily setting, and it's great to be here at the end of a two-week sitting. You comment all the time in question time about lifting the tone, about the fact that we need to be better in here and that we need to show humility in here.

There's always going to be argy-bargy; you know that, and you allow a bit of that, and that's important. When people complain about behaviour in the parliament, I say, 'Look, we're not a croquet club, we're not a debating society; we are debating legislation.' It's good to see passion in here, because we're debating about things that are important to us. I think that's healthy.

It means that it isn't happening on the street; it's happening in the chamber, which is very important. I want to make a comment about the government. I said something in the 90-second statement today along these lines as well.

I say this very humbly. I'm going to use two examples. When you're in the hot seat and there are some questions being asked that are difficult, the response to the first question is really crucial to how things can play out.

I'm sure the Minister for Veterans' Affairs—I don't know him that well, with all due respect—is a nice guy. I'm sure he's in this place with really good intentions, as most people are. But I think where things went awry this week was when he was asked the first question about the cap on allied health—he has an explanation and a rationale there—and about veterans' responses to that.

After the first question he was asked this week, he came to the dispatch box—he didn't look at the veterans. He could have looked at the veterans and said: 'I thank you for your service. I get that you have anxiety about the cap on allied health and real questions and feelings about that.

I'm going to change my diary now. Walk back with me after question time, and we'll go through those issues.' I personally believe that, if he'd done that, we would have gone, 'That's the end of that,' because he would have shown real humility and real understanding to that community. But what I believe he did was come up with a political thing.

It was a question from the opposition, and he played it like that. He threw a bit of stuff at us and didn't acknowledge the veterans in any way, shape or form. Of course, then it has legs—right?

That is because of the arrogance of the response or—I'll say it more nicely—the lack of humility in the response. In the last two weeks, I think we saw, with all due respect—and I respect the Prime Minister for the position he has. But I think even he, in his heart of hearts, would understand that, when they see the vision of that podcast, some people—and some of those people would be women—wouldn't be comfortable with what, in their view, is portrayed.

I got howled down a bit when I said this in the 90-second statement, but the Prime Minister, when he was first asked about this last week, could have got up and said: 'Look, if people have taken offence to my body language and the wording that I used—I humbly apologise to the Japanese prime minister and any woman who was offended by that. That's not what I thought I was doing or saying in that.' If he'd said it like that and been humble, I firmly believe that there wouldn't have been any further questions on that.

But his instinctive response was to get up and read out a prepared—he obviously thought he might get a question on this. He had a political, strategic script that he read from—no humility. There was something said about the relationship between Japan and Australia being healthy.

He segued into that. Dare I say it to you, Mr Speaker—you are not a perfect human being. Neither am I, neither is anyone in this place and neither is anyone in the Australian community.

When people, especially leaders like prime ministers and ministers in a government, get up and say, 'Do you know what? I think I got that a bit wrong. I can see why people saw that that way and reacted that way.

I've got to be better'—I actually believe that would have been the end of the questions to the Prime Minister as well. That would've killed that. We would've moved on.

So I say this as humbly as I can to the government and the ministers in this place: I think you have very important roles, and I respect that, but it's going to be good for you and I think it's going to be good for this chamber and good for the country to see a little bit of mea culpa and, occasionally, a little bit of—do you know what?—'I get that maybe I overstepped there,' or, 'I get that maybe in that case I should have done that a bit better,' and a bit of accountability too, because, 4½ years in, you can't blame us for everything, which still seems to happen a lot.