MATTERS OF PUBLIC IMPORTANCE

Mr BURNS (Macnamara) (15:50): I am fond of the member for Casey, and I think he was a bit forward-leaning when talking about auditions, because he was holding up a mirror during that speech and really could see himself at the dispatch box as a more prominent role, I would think, in whatever world happens after they roll the Leader of the Opposition. This hapless leader of the opposition's rambling speech at the start of this MPI was unbecoming of the office that he holds.

If you want to look at the Leader of the Opposition's calibre right now, you can go onto his social media. The sorts of posts that that page has currently going on right now about the Minister for Small Business show exactly the substance of the Leader of the Opposition. The Leader of the Opposition, frankly, should take that post down right now.

If any of your staff are watching right now, they should just take a good, hard, long look at themselves and think about what they're doing in this place and the office that they hold as the alternative office seeking to be the prime minister of this country. I would just say, to the Leader of the Opposition, don't go that low. You don't need to.

This country and this parliament deserve someone who occupies your office to have more respect than that. The other thing I would say, on more day-to-day matters, is that the Leader of the Opposition, his record and the things that he was talking about during his speech frankly need to be scrutinised. We brought tax cuts to the last election, tax cuts for hardworking Australians.

I'll read out what the Leader of the Opposition said before the election. The Leader of the Opposition said this in March 2025: 'Labor's tax cuts are a cruel hoax. We won't support what they're doing here.' Fast-forward a federal election.

What does the Leader of the Opposition say about the tax cuts? He said: … we need to be the party of lower taxes, including lower personal income taxes. I think that was a mistake.

He realised his own mistake. He realised the mistake of the coalition of opposing Labor tax cuts at the last election, opposing them time and time again. They opposed the stage 3 tax cut changes that we made to make sure that not just higher-income earners but also lower- and middle-income workers across the country got a tax cut.

But of course, then, what's their big, grand plan? What's the big thing that the Leader of the Opposition decides to do in this place? Instead of talking about small businesses, he talks about mining uranium and lifting the moratorium on nuclear energy.

Mr BURNS: Yes, there are a lot of small businesses mining uranium around the world. I'm sure of it. But the Leader of the Opposition seems to have learned his lesson on taxes and not opposing income taxes.

But, by golly, these people just keep going back to the same old play. If you remember the previous leader of the opposition—actually, no, the previous previous leader of the opposition, before they rolled Sussan Ley—Peter Dutton came out and announced his nuclear energy policy before the last election and refused to go and visit one of the seven sites that they were proposing to have nuclear energy at any point throughout the election campaign.

And what happened when they were leading with nuclear energy as their key election platform? Half the Liberal Party got wiped out, especially in the cities. It's hardly surprising that, when the Leader of the Opposition is lurching to the far right on every single opportunity with deep cuts to migration and chasing Pauline Hanson down the rabbit hole, the Business Council and all of the major business industry groups are saying that the coalition have literally lost their minds.

It's not surprising that we then have the other guy, the former treasurer, out there telling everyone how ready he is to take on the top job. The former treasurer is not bad at getting media. I'll give him that.

But there are quite a few people over there that are very, very quietly quite happy for the former treasurer, the former member for Kooyong, to be out there strutting his stuff. I'll read out a couple of quotes of people who were thinking about whether or not Josh Frydenberg could lead the Liberal Party. Senator Kovacic said: He's been the Treasurer … so that goes without saying, but obviously he's not in the party room now.

We have got a leader. It's not exactly the biggest endorsement of the current leadership. My friend Senator Sharma said: Angus is our leader and Josh is not in the contest, so I'm backing Angus.

It's very qualified support from Senator Sharma for the Leader of the Opposition. (Time expired)