PRESS CONFERENCE
SYDNEY
THURSDAY, 7 APRIL 2022
SUBJECTS: Quiet Australians aren’t quiet anymore; Michael Towke; Scott Morrison wasting taxpayers’ money; federal election.
JASON CLARE, SHADOW MINISTER FOR HOUSING AND HOMELESSNESS: Quiet Australians aren’t quiet anymore. Australians are standing up and giving the Prime Minister a gobful. Australians are angry and they’re exhausted. They’re sick of the lies, they’re sick of the incompetence, they’re sick of the smirk, and they’re sick of being yelled at by this Prime Minister. And they’re yelling back. That’s what we saw at the pub in the Hunter last night.
Time is running out for Scott Morrison. He’s got to call the election sooner or later, and Labor is ready. We’re led by a man who is a good and honest man, in Anthony Albanese, and he leads an experienced and united team with plans to build a better future for all Australians. Contrast that with the other side. Scott Morrison, who has been haunted almost every day by his past. The truth is catching up with him. Australians are onto him. His whole party now is at war with him.
Australia’s the best country in the world, but we deserve a better government. Australians deserve a government that is focused on them, not at war with itself. Almost every other day, we see a story in the news about the civil war happening inside the Liberal Party. In the last 24 hours, we saw two of those stories. Another leaked text message from Gladys Berejiklian has come out in the last 24 hours exposing the hatred inside the Liberal Party. And then there was the interview that Michael Towke gave to the Project last night. And perhaps the most extraordinary revelation, in that interview, was that a member of Scott Morrison’s own Cabinet has been sending text messages to Michael Towke, telling him that he believes him, and to keep going. A member of Scott Morrison’s inner sanctum, part of his trusted circle of friends, that’s sending text messages to Scott Morrison’s political nemesis.
There are more rats in Scott Morrison’s Cabinet than there are at the chemist. And perhaps there’d be even more Liberals coming out and talking about the civil war that’s erupted inside the Liberal Party, if it wasn’t for the fact that Scott Morrison has given so many of them cushy government jobs.
In the last 24 hours, it’s been revealed that over the last year, Scott Morrison has handed out jobs to 50 of his mates for salaries up to half a million dollars. At a time where cost of living is through the roof, and where most Aussies are struggling to pay the bills, I think Australians would be aghast to find out that Scott Morrison is putting his hand in your pocket, to put that money in the pockets of his mates.
This is what a government looks like when it’s run out of puff, when it’s run out of ideas, when it’s focused on itself, and the wars inside its own government, rather than doing the job it should be doing, which is focused on you, and focused on helping you to pay the bills and to build a better future for all Australians.
If the government manages to scrape home in a couple of weeks’ time at the election, it’s not going to get any better. It’ll just get worse. And I think the revelations from today should remind all Australians that this government doesn’t deserve to be re-elected. After almost a decade in power, they don’t deserve another decade in government. What the Liberal Party really needs now is time in opposition, time on the opposition benches, where they can learn from their mistakes and learn from the problems that they’ve created for the Australian people. Thanks very much.
ENDS
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