DOCUMENTS

Senator AYRES (New South Wales—Minister for Industry and Innovation and Minister for Science) (12:33): In relation to order number 27, I've previously advised the Senate that the minister made a valid claim of public interest immunity over documents in the scope of this order—documents which directly related to the deliberations of the cabinet. I am unsurprised but happy to advise that the basic principles of Westminster government and of cabinet confidentiality have not changed since I last explained them to Senator Bragg in this place.

Breaching this confidentiality would do serious harm to the ability of cabinets to conduct the business of government, and that is in the interests of all Australians and future Australians. We know that this OPD circus is in no way about transparency, and it's certainly not about respecting the institutions and the powers of this Senate. If Senator Bragg respected the institutions of this parliament, he would not be abusing the Senate's power to order the production of documents.

It is as simple as that. To have people in the so-called Liberal tradition—what's left of it—continuing with this flagrant and shocking abuse of the parliament's processes just shows how far the Liberal Party has drifted from the mainstream of Australian politics. This is about one thing, really, plain and simple—besides the egos of the characters involved.

It's about the coalition undercutting Australians who want to get ahead with a five per cent deposit. All of this is because Senator Bragg thinks that there's evidence there somewhere that the five per cent deposit scheme would cause some stratospheric rise in home prices. He will stand here in this chamber and argue that prices are going up too much because of five per cent deposits, and then he'll go outside the chamber and argue that prices have gone down too much because of our tax reforms.

That inconsistency doesn't trouble Senator Bragg and it doesn't trouble the modern Liberal Party, because consistency has stopped mattering to the characters who lead the modern Liberal Party. A belief in institutions has stopped mattering because they have left the mainstream. Senator Roberts has left planet Earth, essentially, and these guys have left the mainstream.

We saw that on the weekend—the drift of the coalition. It's not enough to talk about polarisation. They've left the political centre.

Mr Taylor, who leads this tiny— Senator AYRES: We are all trying to fathom how it is that this matter keeps being brought forward, and I'm doing my best to explain how it is that a once proud political party of the centre right has become so unmoored from where ordinary Australians are, from where Middle Australia is, that they have drifted off. On the weekend, we saw it.

Mr Taylor was the first Liberal leader to join the conga line of supplicants. He went to this foreign funded, extremist CPAC conference on the weekend on his knees, apologising and grovelling to this offshore funded organisation. This party has lost its way completely.

Senator AYRES: Senator Bragg raises relevance. In order to be a mainstream political party, you have to have relevance to the things that matter to mainstream Australians. Do you know what matters?

Five per cent housing deposits matter to the hundreds of thousands of Australians who've taken advantage of them, who've got a roof over their heads that they can call their own, who are making their payments in a diligent and serious way and who Senator Bragg mocks every day of the week.