This is an important week, Opposition Leader Tony Abbott says.
Abbott’s comment comes as Federal Parliament met today amidst continuing speculation about Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s leadership.
Gillard’s political judgement is in question again over her handling of the controversy over foreign workers for the mining industry. Gillard told unions she was kept in the dark about the decision to allow Gina Hancock to import 1700 workers. The decision was announced by Immigration Minister Chris Bowen on Friday. Other government sources claim Gillard was aware of the impending announcement.
After last week’s aggressive preoccupation with Craig Thomson, today’s Question Time in the House of Representatives was subdued. The Opposition did not move to suspend Standing Orders as they often do during Question Time.
Opposition Leader Tony Abbott held a Cabinet meeting and posted this statement late today.
Transcript of Tony Abbott’s remarks to the Shadow Cabinet meeting in Canberra.
This is an important week. I think that it’s more and more obvious that this is a divided and dysfunctional government.
It’s also obvious that the faceless men are gathering around the Prime Minister. Now, we all know that the Labor Party is run by faceless men. We all know that the faceless men essentially decide who the Labor Party is, but it’s really up to the Australian people rather than the faceless men who should decide who should be the Prime Minister of this country.
So, while the poison just increases and the rancour just increases inside the Government, we are getting on with the job of providing a credible alternative with plans to build a stronger economy for a stronger Australia.
Now, this is why it is so important and why we have been so focussed today on getting expenditure down because if we can get expenditure down, we can get borrowing down and that takes the pressure off interest rates. If we can get expenditure down, obviously we get taxes down and that takes the pressure off families’ cost of living.
So, on the one hand, you’ve got a government which his at war with itself; a government where the left hand and the right hand don’t know what each other is doing.
I think that the contrast between the Coalition and the Labor Party right now could not be clearer and I think that’s going to be particularly obvious this week in the Parliament.
