Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister
PATRICK GORMAN, ASSISTANT MINISTER TO THE PRIME MINISTER: Peter Dutton is turning himself into the Demolition Man of Australian politics. Demolition Dutton has said that he wants to destroy the National Reconstruction Fund. Not content with destroying the car industry when they are in government, he now wants to destroy Australia’s manufacturing future, destroy the capability of Australians to get those good, secure jobs that come from manufacturing, destroy our sovereign manufacturing capability. Demolition Dutton is becoming one of the most negative forces that we’ve ever seen in Australian politics. To have someone like Demolition Dutton, who would come out and say that he does not want to have more Australian manufacturing is just beyond belief and not content, again with destroying Australia’s credibility on climate change when they were last in government, we see Demolition Dutton now trying to demolish action on climate change by trying to block sensible improvements to the safeguard mechanism.
This demolition campaign of Peter Dutton is not in the national interest. You can only conclude that he thinks it’s in his political interest to somehow destroy the future of Australian jobs when it comes to manufacturing and to destroy our credibility on climate change. But not content with destroying our credibility on climate change, Demolition Dutton demolished his own credibility yesterday, he said, and I’m quoting the leader of the Liberal Party here, that the Liberal Party is the party of the working class. The party that tried to make Medicare more expensive when they were last in office. The party that sent the Australian car industry offshore, killed the Australian car industry, is apparently the party of the working class. The party of Work Choices is now trying to tell the Australian people it is the party of the working class. Demolition Dutton has destroyed his credibility when it comes to the faith that he should be trying to build with the Australian people. We’ve got one side of politics in this place trying to demolish sensible policy.
Today, the Australian Labor Party and the Albanese Government will introduce legislation to build up the new housing that Australia needs with the Housing Australia Future Fund, a landmark piece of legislation to make sure that we have the big long term never ending build of social and affordable housing in Australia, making sure that people can get the houses they need, across this country. A $10 billion Future Fund to make sure that we have that rolling build that has been evading Australians for so long. We’ve had stop-start programmes for too long when it comes to social housing. The people of Australia deserve a government that will invest for the long term in perpetuity in social and affordable housing, to make sure we have the diversity of housing that my community and communities across Australia need. So more Australians can find that home that gives them somewhere to get the security they need and to make sure that they can have the benefits of everything that comes with living in this great country we call Australia. Thank you.
