Concetta Fierravanti-Wells: 'An autocrat and a bully who has no moral compass', Senate speech about Scott Morrison - 2022

29 March 2022, Canberra, Australia

Given the events and outcomes of the dodgy preselection where I lost by a handful of votes last Saturday, my time in this place will finish on June 30, 2022. Accordingly, there are a few matters I wish to place on the record before my departure. Many in this place would be aware of the history I have had with Scott Morrison. Let me give some clarity and context to that history so there can be no misunderstanding.

In order to understand the man, it is best to look at his past actions. While professing to be a man of faith and claiming centre right status, Morrison is a product of the left, having worked for Bruce Baird. He is adept at running with the foxes and hunting with the hounds, lacking a moral compass and having no conscience. His actions conflict with his portrayal as a man of faith. He has used his so-called faith as a marketing advantage. We learnt the leader of his Hillsong Church group, Brian Houston, was a mentor to Morrison. Houston recently stood down as head of Hillsong because he was charged with sexual offences. It is noteworthy that, in the past, Houston flew top cover for his paedophile father.

[Editor’s note: Houston was not charged with sexual offences, but resigned after being found to have breached Hillsong’s code of conduct.]

When Morrison worked for Tourism Australia, he backstabbed his minister Fran Bailey. Eventually he was fired from the position. As state director of the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party, Morrison honed his manipulative skills when overseeing the Wentworth preselection to unseat Peter King. About 120 membership applications were rejected to help Turnbull get selected, the person Morrison ultimately backstabbed.

Morrison might profess to be Christian, but there was nothing Christian about what was done to Michael Towke. When Morrison made his run for the seat of Cook, there were several hopefuls, including Towke, Fletcher and Coleman. Towke won the ballot in the first round with 84 votes. Morrison got eight votes. Having lost the ballot, Morrison and his cronies went to Sam Dastyari to get dirt on Towke, who had been in the Labor Party for a period of time whilst at university. This dossier of anecdotes was weaponised and leaked to the media to the point where Towke’s reputation was destroyed.

I am advised that there are several statutory declarations to attest to racial comments made by Morrison at the time that we can’t have a Lebanese person in Cook. The state executive voted 12 to 11 not to endorse Towke and ordered a modified selection process. The only way that Towke could get political exoneration for a future run was to agree to put his numbers behind Morrison. Morrison met with David Clarke and I and promised various things. Of course he took our votes and never delivered.

After the selection Towke joined my staff. He subsequently sued the newspapers for defamation. He won his cases but this was cold comfort. Morrison, his cronies and the Liberal establishment in New South Wales had destroyed a good, young man. I regret the day that Clarke and I agreed to put Morrison into Cook. Since then Morrison has never faced a preselection. Hence the trampling of members’ rights in New South Wales. Denying them proper preselections and installing captain’s picks is classic Morrison.

He and his consigliore, Alex Hawke, have deliberately contrived a crisis in New South Wales through a year of delays in not having selections. Hawke, as his representative on state executive for months and months, failed to attend nomination review committee meetings to review candidates, thereby holding up preselections. Spurious arguments were mounted to justify the unjustifiable. The constitution was trashed. There is a putrid stench of corruption emanating from the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party.

All of this was under the eye of Philip Ruddock. As a former attorney-general, I am appalled that he has allowed Morrison to bully his way to a situation where the next election has been put at risk all to save Hawke’s career. This is what it’s all about. Hawke knows that if he faces a plebiscite preselection, he will lose. Morrison has railroaded federal executive into setting up not only a committee which endorsed Hawke, Ley and Zimmerman but a second committee which is now endorsing captain’s picks in seats like Parramatta and Hughes, which were scheduled for preselections this week.

So what is the hold that Hawke has over Morrison? Good question, especially given Hawke’s own corrupt antics in New South Wales. During a speech advocating for a federal integrity commission, I referred to Hawke’s activities and the dealings of the Baulkham Hills branch. At a meeting in 2018, 10 members were admitted to the branch. This was confirmed in text messages from the branch secretary. Hawke was present at the meeting. He saw what went on. I’m told there is video evidence of the meeting. I also have relevant documents, including correspondence sent to Morrison on the issue.

After the meeting, the minutes were falsified to show that the 10 members were not accepted. Statutory declarations were provided to counter this falsity. The branch was eventually suspended by state executive. The branch president and secretary, both acolytes of Hawke, refused to provide statutory declarations. Despite clear evidence of fraud, Hawke’s role in this process has never been fully disclosed. The New South Wales state director has sat on this matter for years. Legal proceedings are now on foot, and I look forward to the day when Hawke will be required to give evidence under oath to explain his corrupt conduct.

There is a very appropriate saying here: the fish stinks from the head. Morrison and Hawke have ruined the Liberal Party in New South Wales by trampling its constitution. Indeed, I understand at a federal executive meeting Morrison was asked whether he was running a protection racket in New South Wales.

In recent months I have kept members of the division updated. I have received hundreds, if not thousands, of emails outlining their disgust. They have lost faith in the party. They want to leave. They don’t like Morrison and they don’t trust him. They continue to despair at our prospects at the next federal election, and they blame Morrison for this. Our members do not want to help in the upcoming election. By now you might be getting the picture that Morrison is not interested in rules-based order. It is his way or the highway — an autocrat and a bully who has no moral compass.

Now to my own situation. Having lost by a handful of votes last Saturday and having analysed the data, I know the numbers tell their own story. Clearly, my push for democracy in the New South Wales division was certainly not welcome. This would mean that the factional operatives can’t control preselections. For years, figures in the Liberal Party have denied the existence of factions and criticised the ALP. This is hypocrisy, given that the Liberal Party is now no different to the Labor Party.

In addition, having been a critic of Morrison on a range of policy matters, I was a marked woman. I have known for a number of years of the machinations involving the PMO and others to move me on. Recent media reports confirmed a deal agreed to by Hawke, Yaron Finkelstein from the PMO, Charles Perrottet, Dallas McInerney, Trent Zimmerman and Matt Kean. In my case, Dallas McInerney from Catholic Schools NSW was encouraged to run against me. Realising he did not have support from the conservative base to win a preselection, they resorted to getting Jim Molan to run, despite Molan having promised he would only see out the Sinodinos term.

In my case, Wade McInerney, brother of Dallas, worked in my office for five years. Following his departure to work for Robert Assaf at Greyhound Racing NSW, I discovered he was engaged in inappropriate conduct and activities. I was duty-bound to refer him to the Australian Federal Police, the Department of Finance and the Australian Government Security Vetting Agency.

Having engaged lawyers and fought hard for a preselection, I got it because my enemies realised my strong support from delegates meant Plan B had to be implemented. Dom Perrottet’s premiership is held together by a thread through a so-called unity deal with the Kean-Poulos left. For years the Perrottets have railed against Hawke, threatening to prosecute the Baulkham Hills matter but never delivering. The Perrottets, the McInerneys, Assaf etc had only about 30 votes between them. In the ultimate act of treachery those numbers were press-ganged into voting for Hawke’s candidate, Molan. Why? In short, the so-called conservative premier aligned with his so-called enemy Hawke to do a deal: Morrison gets his captain’s picks in federal seats and no state members jump ship to the federal arena, which would in turn have crippled the premiership of a supine and weak state leader.

In my public life I have met ruthless people. Morrison tops the list, followed closely by Hawke. Morrison is not fit to be prime minister and Hawke certainly is not fit to be a minister.

Malcolm Turnbull: 'We need a different style of leadership', Leadership challenge to PM Tony Abbott - 2016

14 September 2015, Canberra, Australia

Thank you very much. A little while ago I met with the Prime Minister and advised him that I would be challenging him for the leadership of the Liberal Party, and I asked him to arrange or facilitate a meeting of the party room to enable a leadership ballot to be held. Of course, I've also resigned as Communications Minister.
Malcolm Turnbull's challenge in full

Malcolm Turnbull announces his challenge to become Prime Minister and makes his case. Doorstop in full.

Now this is not a decision that anyone could take lightly. I have consulted with many, many colleagues, many Australians, many of our supporters in every walk of life. This course of action has been urged on me by many people over a long period of time.

It is clear enough that the Government is not successful in providing the economic leadership that we need. It is not the fault of individual ministers. Ultimately, the Prime Minister has not been capable of providing the economic leadership our nation needs.

Communications Minister Malcolm Turnbull arrives to address the media and announce that he is challenging Prime Minister Tony Abbott for the leadership.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen

He has not been capable of providing the economic confidence that business needs. Now we are living as Australians in the most exciting time. The big economic changes that we're living through here and around the world offer enormous challenges and enormous opportunities.

And we need a different style of leadership. We need a style of leadership that explains those challenges and opportunities, explains the challenges and how to seize the opportunities. A style of leadership that respects the people's intelligence, that explains these complex issues and then sets out the course of action we believe we should take and makes a case for it. We need advocacy, not slogans.

We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people.

Now if we continue with Mr Abbott as Prime Minister, it is clear enough what will happen. He will cease to be Prime Minister and he'll be succeeded by Mr Shorten. You only have to see the catastrophically reckless approach of Mr Shorten to the China-Australia free trade agreement.

Surely one of the most important foundations of our prosperity, to know that he is utterly unfit to be Prime Minister of this country and yet so he will be if we do not make a change.

The one thing that is clear about our current situation is the trajectory. We have lost 30 Newspolls in a row. It is clear that the people have made up their mind about Mr Abbott's leadership.

Now what we also need to remember, and this is a critical thing, is that our party the Liberal Party has the right values. We have a hugely talented team here in the Parliament. Our values of free enterprise, of individual initiative, of freedom; this is what you need to be a successful agile economy in 2015.

What we have not succeeded in doing is translating those values into the policies and the ideas that will excite the Australian people and encourage them to believe and understand that we have a vision for their future.

We need to respect the intelligence of the Australian people

We also need a new style of leadership in the way we deal with others whether it is our fellow members of Parliament, whether it is the Australian people. We need to restore traditional Cabinet government. There must be an end to policy on the run and captain's calls. We need to be truly consultative with colleagues, members of Parliament, senators and the wider public.

We need an open government, an open government that recognises that there is an enormous sum of wisdom both within our colleagues in this building and, of course, further afield.

But above all we have to remember that we have a great example of good Cabinet government. John Howard's government most of us served in and yet few would say that the Cabinet government of Mr Abbott bears any similarity to the style of Mr Howard. So that's what we need to go back to. Finally, let me say something about Canning. Now this is an important byelection and I recognise dealing with this issue in the week before the by-election is far from ideal.

But regrettably, there are few occasions that are entirely ideal for tough calls and tough decisions like this. The alternative if we were to wait and this issue, these problems were to roll on and on and on is we will get no clear air.

The fact is we are maybe 10 months, 11 months away from the next election. Every month lost is a month of lost opportunities. We have to make a change for our country's sake, for the Government's sake, for the party's sake.

From a practical point of view a change of leadership would improve our prospects in Canning, although I'm very confident with the outstanding candidate we have that we will be successful.

Now you'll understand… please, you'll understand that I now have to go and speak to my colleagues. I trust I've explained the reasons why I am standing for the leadership of the Liberal Party. Motivated by a commitment to serve the Australian people to ensure that our Liberal values continue to be translated into good government, sound policies, economic confidence creating the jobs and the prosperity of the future.

Remember this, the only way, the only way we can ensure that we remain a high wage, generous social welfare net, first world society is if we have outstanding economic leadership, if we have strong business confidence. That is what we in the Liberal Party are bound to deliver and it's what I am committed to deliver if the party room gives me their support as leader of the party.

Thank you very much.

John Howard: - 'You have endured far too many years in the political wilderness', Election night - 1996

2 March 1996, C Sydney, Australia

Can I say to you, and my first words are addressed to all of the people of Australia, that I am very conscious of the enormous responsibility that has been placed upon me and upon my colleagues by the verdict of the Australian people today.

I feel many emotions tonight, but the deepest emotion of all I feel is that of humility that the Australian people have given me the privilege of leading the Government of this country and I want to say that the Government that I will lead will be a Government not only for the people who voted for us but also for the people who voted against us.

Eleven years ago when I was unsuccessful in an election I said in my concession speech that the things that united Australians were infinitely more important and more enduring than the things that divided Australians.

That has always been my political credo, and it will be a political credo that I will carry forward in the governance of this country over the next three years.

I want to thank Paul Keating for his gracious words. I want to wish Paul Keating and Anita and their family a good health and happiness in the future. Can I say that although we have been vigorous opponents be has been a great warrior for his own political cause and despite our differences that is something that I recognise.

I owe thanks to many people and I will come to that in a moment. I want to make it clear that although uniting the Australian people will be the cornerstone of my approach in Government, we have been elected with a mandate, a very powerful mandate.

And whilst I will seek at all times unity and a common point of view, we have not been elected to be just a pale imitation of the Government that we have replaced.

We have been given this emphatic mandate tonight because there have been many things that have been left undone that need to be attended to and addressed. We need to implement the program on which we were elected and I want to make it very clear that there will be an absolute determination with fairness and understanding and to do that and to do it with resolution and without qualification.

I want to thank all of my colleagues and I especially wish to thank Tim Fischer and the National Party. I will lead a Coalition in Government as I have led a Coalition in Opposition, and I look forward to working very closely with Tim Fischer as the Deputy Prime Minister of Australia. To all of my Parliamentary colleagues, I say thank you. And I particularly want to extend my thanks to the Liberal Party organisation; to Tony Staley the Federal President; to Andrew Robb and Ron Walker the honorary federal treasurer and the many other members of the organisation who have worked so tirelessly.

Can I say it is an immensely proud moment for me tonight to lead back into Government the Liberal Party of Australia. We have endured sixteen years without a federal electoral victory and tonight is an immensely proud and wonderful moment.

And in celebrating the miracle of democracy that we can peacefully and respectfully transfer power through the ballot box and through no other device, let us also as Liberals and as Liberal supporters celebrate the magnificent win that we've had tonight.

It is a victory for those who voted Liberal in the past and for those who are by habit swinging voters, and it is a victory that has also embraced many traditional Labor Party areas of Australia. And when you look at the swings in Western Sydney and in some of the areas...( inaudible)..; and I look at the magnificent result in Queensland that wonderful result in South Australia and the way in which the Liberal Party held its very high proportion of seats in Victoria and the early returns in Western Australia are very encouraging. It is a comprehensive endorsement of the philosophy and the approach of the Liberal Party.

And to all of you who have endured the barbs and the insults and you've heard your Party being written off, I want to say to the rank and file of the Liberal Party, you have endured far too many years in the political wilderness. And tonight it is a victory that we all share. It is not mine alone, it is mine because I was given from the moment I became the leader of the Liberal Party just over a year ago, I was given the most magnificent loyalty and support by my Parliamentary colleagues and all of the members of the organisation. And I say from the bottom of my heart how grateful I am for that support and that loyalty because that is ( inaudible)....

I said when I launched our campaign only a few weeks ago that one of the great features of the Liberal Party is that it was owned by no section of the Australian community and our only obligation is to give good Government to all of the Australian people.

And it will be my intention and my commitment that from now I and my colleagues will devote our all to delivering good government, to doing good things, and for delivering the maximum degree of unity and cohesion to the Australian people.

There is something special about being an Australian and today I experience along with everybody else I had to queue up to cast my vote, and the bloke in front of me turned around and said, " oh, hello". He had a Labor Party how to vote ticket he didn't have a Liberal one and he said, " It's nice to meet you but I'm not going to vote for you!" And that is, can I say, that is a celebration of what Australia is all about.

And the very last thing that I want to say is a special word of thanks to some people who've been very close to me over the past months. I want to thank my own personal staff. The personal staff of a Party leader carry enormous burdens and responsibilities and I am personally very very grateful to all of my staff for the magnificent job that they have done.

They have shared the disappointments and tonight they share the exhilaration of this remarkable victory.

And lastly, can I say to my wife Janette and to my three children, Melanie, Tim and Richard, of all the things these four people in the world, they have kept me going and they have sustained me and they have shared the difficulties as well as the successes of politics. And anybody in public life should always remember the contribution of their families and I unhesitatingly express not only my affection but also my enormous gratitude to my wife and my three children for what they have done for me and what they continue to mean to me.

And my very last words are to all of the people of Australia, to my fellow Australians, I am both deeply moved and I understand very very deeply and very profoundly the responsibility that has been given to me tonight. And I can but make a simple promise and a simple commitment, that from now on I will do all I can to advance the welfare of all of the Australian people.

I will focus on those things that bind us together, I will focus on our strengths, I will defend the interests and the values and the principles of this country both domestically and internationally. There is something very special, there is something unique about our nation and about being Australian and I commit myself and my future Government to the service of all of the Australian people.

Robert Menzies: 'I did but see her passing by", Welcome remarks for Queen Elizabeth II - 1963

18 February 1963. Parliament House, Canberra, Australia

Your Majesty, Your Royal Highness

It's my very great privilege as Prime Minister, your Prime Minister, Madam of Australia to offer you and His Royal Highness a very, very warm welcome once more to this country.

I know that we had a little arrangement that speeches should be reduced to the minimum,. a matter of , which I think I might safely say Your Majesty warmly approved, but you can't expect, really, in this place of Parliament which is the house of speeches, and with myself and then the Deputy Prime Minister and then the Leader of your Opposition in this country, to let the occasion pass without saying something.

But I assure you, Ma'am, we will reduce it to a minimum.

The first thing that I want to say is to remind everybody of something you said when you were here last, when you referred to the fact that in the constitutional structure of Australia Parliamentary, executive, judicial you are there.

You are, indeed the Head of this House. " Be it enacted by the Queen's Most Excellent Majesty" and, therefore Madam, you are among your friends, and in one sense, among your colleagues. We, of course, are also delighted to see His Royal Highness, Prince Phillip, who has been here a few times — not enough but a few times — and who has a standing among us which I don't need to describe because he has been conscious of it so many ' times.

Ma’am, there are a lot of interesting people in the world who like to discuss the Monarchy. There are clever people in the world, at least so I understand, who have discovered that all sorts of things ought to be done to the Monarchy, to democratize the Monarchy, to do something to it, to do something to what we all are proud to say is the most democratic Monarchy in the whole wide world. ( Applause)

We pay no attention to that; when we see you, we see you as our Queen, we see you as our Sovereign Lady, we see you as the successor of monarchs who in this very century, have by their own conduct and their own standards and their own genius, helped to preserve our Monarchy in a world in which crowns have been tumbling and disasters have beset mankind.

And we are proud to think that so far from abrogating any of our liberty, because we are your subjects, we know that we add to our liberty because we are your subjects as are scores and scores of millions of people around the world, and out of all our joint allegiance to you comes an addition to our freedom, not a subtraction from it.

Your Majesty, it’s a proud thought for us to have you here, to remind ourselves that in thiis great structure of Government which has evolved and of which this Parliament is one of the fruits, you — if I may use the expression are the living and lovely centre of our enduring allegiance. (Applause)

Ma'am, I say one thing more and one thing only. You today begin your journey around Australia. It is a journey you have made before. You will be seen in the next few weeks by .hundreds of thousands and, I hope, by millions of your Australian subjects. Mothers will hold their children up to have a look at you as you go by, and they themselves, and their husbands will have a look at you as you go by. This must be to you now something that is almost a task. All I ask you to remember, in this country of yours, is that every man, woman and child who even sees you with a passing glimpse as you go by, will remember it remember it with joy, remember it in the words of the old seventeenth-century poet who wrote those famous words " I did but see her passing by. And yet I love her till I die"

Queen Elizabeth waves to first nations people of the Northern Territory during her 1954 tour. Photo State Library of NSW collection

Malcolm Fraser: 'We will use the power vested in us to delay the passage of the government's money bills through the Senate', press conference - 1975

15 October 1975, Canberra, Australia

In the House of Representatives this morning, I asked the prime minister for the second time whether he and his government would resign. For the second time, he said that he’d not. The Opposition now has no choice. We will use the power vested in us, by the Constitution and delay the passage of the government’s money bills through the Senate, until the parliament goes to the people.
In accordance with long established Constitutional practice, which the prime minister has himself acknowledged in the past, the government must then resign.

Malcolm Turnbull: "The Labor Party ran some of the most systematic, well-funded lies ever peddled in Australia",Election night speech - 2016

3 July 2016, Sydney, NSW, Australia

Malcom Turnbull is current Prime Minister of Australia. More information at Museum of Australian Democracy entry.

My friends, I can report that based on the advice I have from the party officials, we can have every confidence that we will form a Coalition majority Government in the next Parliament.

It is a very, very close count. It is a very close count, as you know. And right now, right now, right now nearly 30% of the votes are yet to be counted. The pre-poll will continue to be counted until 2am.

But I don’t suggest we should wait around for that. And then the commissioner advises us there will be no more carding tomorrow or on Monday and they will count the postal votes on Tuesday.

And we may, the final results in terms of seats may not be known until then. So we will have a wait a few days. But as my distinguished predecessor, mentor, former boss John Howard well remembers ...

We have seen this before in 1998. And this is an experience not unknown in the parliamentary history of the Liberal Party. And of course the really critical thing is this, my friends — the values that we have and the policies that we brought to this election meet the challenges of our times.

The Labor Party, the Labor Party ran some of the most systematic, well-funded lies ever peddled in Australia.

We have never, the mass ranks of the union movement and all of their millions of dollars, telling vulnerable Australians that Medicare was going to be privatised or sold, frightening people in their bed and even today, even as voters went to the polls, as you would have seen in the press, there were text messages being sent to thousands of people across Australia saying that Medicare was about to be privatised by the Liberal Party.

And the message, the message, the SMS message came from Medicare. It said it came from Medicare. An extraordinary act of dishonesty. No doubt the police will investigate. But this is, but this is the scale of the challenge we faced. And regrettably more than a few people were misled. There’s no doubt about that.

But, the circumstances of Australia cannot be changed by a lying campaign from the Labor Party. The challenges, the fact that we live in times of rapid economic change, of enormous opportunity, enormous challenges, a time when we need to be innovative, when we need to be competitive, when we need to be able to seize those opportunities, those times are there.

No politician can give a speech, can write a policy, can send a message and change the reality of the circumstances in which we live and the policies that will enable us to meet those times with success.

And they are the values of our parties because they are the values of freedom, of business, of enterprise and entrepreneurship. And the alternative, the idea, the idea, the idea that the answer to Australia’s economic challenges, as Labor would have it, Labor with the second lowest primary vote in its history, but Labor would say that the answer is more debt, more deficit and higher taxes.

Seriously. Seriously. So, my friends, I’m sure that as the results are refined and come in over the next few days with all of the counting, we will be able to form that majority government. But, let me say this, let me say this without any fear of contradiction.

The Labor Party has no capacity in this parliament to form a stable majority government. That is a fact. Now, I want to thank the millions of Australians who have placed their trust in us, in our party, in our policies, in our candidates. I want to thank them for believing in the policies that we brought to this election.

And we will continue to deserve that trust, and seek to deliver those policies because they are the right ones for our times, because the alternative, my friends, is that we just fall off the back of the pack of leading nations. That is where Labor would have us. That is where Labor would have us.

Higher debt, higher deficits, higher taxes. That’s their formula and that’s a formula for failure. Now, I want to thank all of my colleagues, all of my parliamentary colleagues, my cabinet, I wants to thank Barnaby Joyce, the Deputy PM, the Leader of the National Party, I want to thank my own Deputy, Julie Bishop, the Foreign Minister.

Nobody covered more miles than her. The Treasurer and all the other cabinet ministers and all of my parliamentary colleagues, I want to thank all of our candidates right across the …

(Applause interrupts)

want to thank all of our candidates right across the country and I want to give a shout out to Julia Banks in Chisholm in Victoria for her extraordinary efforts.

I want to acknowledge the great work and leadership shown by the Federal campaign direct, Tony Nutt, and our whole campaign team, and all the Liberal and National Party workers in every electorate and every polling booth often having to stand up to intimidation and threats in there.

I want to thank every single one of them. I want to thank my own team. I want to thank them, thank them for the team and the Prime Minister’s Office for the remarkable work they’ve done over this long campaign.

And then, above all, I want to thank Lucy and my family who, apart from the youngest ones, are here tonight. I want to thank them so much, because, as you all know, as you all know; this political business is a challenging one.

And you cannot do it without the love and the commitment and the passion and the loyalty and the support of your family and I salute you, Lucy. My children, their partners for all of the love and support you’ve given me.

Now, I want to also address a matter that I know has been raised earlier today or this evening about the calling of the double-dissolution election. Let me remind everybody of why that occurred.

That was not a political tactic. It was not designed to remove senators or get a new Senate because new senators are better than old senators or whatever.

It was simply this. We need to restore the rule of law to the construction industry. At the moment the CFMEU has over 100 officials before the courts on more than 1,000 charges of breaching industrial law or agreements.

There is a culture of thuggery and intimidation, and bullying in the construction sector, which John Howard recognised years ago and set up the ABCC.

Bill Shorten and Julia Gillard abolished it. The Hayden royal commission investigated again and made it perfectly clear that the same problems were there, only worse.

And we had no choice — we did have a choice — we could have walked away and said it was all too hard and we weren’t committed to our principles of cleaning up the construction industry and ensuring the rule of law applied. We could have done that.

I don’t think that’s consistent with the values and the principles we share and our party have or I have or the alternative was to take the matter to a double-dissolution so you could present it to a joint sitting. That is the only alternative we had.

For those that say we shouldn’t have called a double-dissolution election are saying we should have just let the CFMEU with getting on with doing what they like and never challenge them. And that is not in Australia’s interests. It’s not right. It’s weak.

We have to stand up for what is right to restore the rule of law in an industry that employs over a million Australians.

So the hour is late. And I don’t expect us to be waiting till 2am, until the final pre-polls are counted. But, as I said, based on the advice I have from our officials and advisers and strategists within the party, I am confident that we will be able to form a majority government.

And certainly, certainly we are the only parties that have the ability or the possibility of doing that. All will depend on the counting.

And we await the completion of that. In the meantime, I want to say to all Australians those that voted for us, those that voted for other parties or candidates, this is a time when we must come together.

We must stick together. We face enormous challenges. We face, we face challenges in a rapidly evolving global economy that we do not anticipate that will surprise us, the opportunities will surprise us, but so will the headwinds.

We need have a common purpose. We need to have a commitment to the economic plan that sets us up for success. We have that plan and we will in Government be seeking the support of all Australians, all members of the parliament, to the program that alone can deliver us success in the years ahead.

Because it is a program, a policy, a plan that is based on what is best in us, that is based on our confidence, optimism, on our courage, on our entrepreneurship, the alternative is hiding under the doona and pretending the world is not what it is.

It’s form of political escapism that you can only continue for as long as you can keep on running up more and more debt. We have got to stop that. This is a time for clear-eyed assessment of our challenges, our opportunities and a plan that enables us to meet them.

We have that plan. All Australians we will seek their support, their commitment to support us in Government, all of us, we will reach out to unite Australians with that common purpose of ensuring that we can compete, that we can succeed, because without that, my friends, there is a road to debt, to deficit, to higher taxes, to stagnation.

That is what our opponents offered. They offered it under the guise of some scare campaigns, so dishonest. But yet in some quarters so effective, that they boasted about it how skilfully they had lied and how effectively they had deceived.

A pretty shameful episode in Australian political history.

Well, the election is over. Only the counting remains. And now is the time to unite in Australia’s aid, in Australia’s service to ensure that we can have truly the very best years for our country ahead of us. Thank you all very much.