Senator AYRES (New South Wales—Assistant Minister for Trade and Assistant Minister for Manufacturing) (17:15): I'm sure that when academics write stories about oppositions and how they deal with election losses somebody will grab hold of the Kubler-Ross five stages of grief. For the information of those not familiar with it, that framework says that a person goes through denial, anger, bargaining, depression and then acceptance. What is required in a system where, essentially, there are two parties of government to get an opposition party match fit, to be up to it? I think there are six stages—denial, overreach, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. This week we are in the overreach stage. Long may it continue, because the longer it goes on, the longer it's going to take Mr Morrison's leftovers over there to get themselves into shape to deal with the real issues for Australian people. We are clearly, 16 months in, seeing an opposition that don't understand the decision that the Australian people made, that haven't reflected upon the gravity of the errors that they made in government, because they are reaching too early for the little things and trying to make them big things. That's what this week has been all about. Now, the decision that Minister Catherine King took in relation to Qatar Airways was done in the normal course of events. In fact, it was a decision that one of her predecessors, Mr McCormack, had made in exactly the same way with no controversy at all, with no complaint. In fact, applications for alterations to bilateral arrangements for access to Australian airports by countries and airlines happen all the time. The truth is, as Minister Wong said here earlier this week, it is not a free-for-all. Competition is not a free-for-all. There are a wide sweep of issues that must be considered when balancing the competitive issues with the safety and security issues and with the other series of national interest questions. Minister King has made it completely clear that the decision she made was in the national interest, in the normal course of events, as Australians would expect. I see that Senator McKenzie, while unwisely including a reference to special-purpose aircraft in her motion, wisely decided not to spend any time on it in her speech in this debate. I'll just say that, if you want to spend some time on that, it's going to be a pretty wild old ride if we spend time on special aircraft flights, coming from the party that formed government when the Morrison government refused to release any details of special-purpose aircraft flights taken in the last 16 months of that sorry period of government. Their current leader, Mr Dutton, released absolutely no information about the use of special-purpose aircraft during his sorry tenure as the Minister for Defence. Unlike those opposite, we have restarted publishing information. We are publishing the information that we have been advised to publish and that reflects the very clear advice of our security agencies. That's not unimportant, and a disregard for that is another illustration of why those opposite are unfit to be making a claim on being the alternative government of Australia. Senator McKenzie wanted to talk about productivity. It's like Idi Amin expressing a sudden interest in human rights! When the other side were in government, they had 10 years of the worst productivity growth on record—in Australian history. And 15 months later, they hope that everybody has forgotten. The business community hasn't forgotten. The trade union movement hasn't forgotten. None of the economic institutions have forgotten. It can't be washed away that easily by carrying on about it. She said that the decision that Minister King had made would apparently cause $1 billion of difference for our Gross Domestic Product. That is the most un-mathematical, silly claim. Why not say $1 trillion? What's after a trillion? Why not just make up numbers that make no sense? What you have to do—for those of you listening at home—is take the three airports, multiply them by seven days, multiply them by the number of the weeks and figure it out. How many dollars does she think that every flight—there you go, some of the team over they are doing it—impacts on the national accounts? It is the silliest proposition. There was a declaration from Senator McKenzie that the Minister should reveal the contents of her discussions with a foreign power and outline all of the national interest reasons that she had engaged in, in order to make a set of decisions in the Australian national interest. This is coming from the outfit that in the last sorry term of government, when there was a disagreement with the government of France, the then prime minister of Australia released the text messages to a newspaper. I haven't seen anything in my short period here that has done more damage to the credibility of Australian political leadership on the international stage than that vainglorious, silly, shortsighted, self-interested piece of work from Mr Morrison. We're not going to take any lectures from this outfit on the appropriate conduct of international relations. Then I come to the motion itself. It includes Senator McKenzie's name, it references transparency and accountability, and then it goes on to use phrase 'rank hypocrisy'. The gravitational force of those phrases all arriving into the same sentence would suck in solar systems. It is inconceivable that a person who had a moment's self-reflection could hop out, get into the office, write that in an e-mail and send it off. This is the same Senator McKenzie—or maybe I'm wrong—who was responsible for the sports rorts saga, isn't it? By all means, come in here and lecture people about transparency and accountability—that's leading with your chin. But then to say it's 'rank hypocrisy', it can't be allowed to stand. It is the wildest proposition, and it underscores how silly this whole week has been from the coalition parties, the apparent alternative parties of government. Senator McKenzie was out there before the general business notice of motion. What have I done, Senator Smith? The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT ( Senator McGrath ): Senator Smith is on his feet. Senator Smith? Senator Dean Smith: Acting Deputy President, Senator Ayres has spoken a lot but not said very much about the substantive matter of Senator McKenzie's motion, which is aviation competition and the performance of the minister for transport, Catherine King, and I'm just wondering if you might bring him back to the substantive matter. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Smith. It is a wide-ranging debate, but I will remind Senator Ayres of the words of the motion, which he's well aware of. Senator AYRES: I could almost hear 'wide-ranging debate' before you just said it, Acting Deputy President. I'm grateful for both your ruling and Senator Smith's injunction there. This is the same Senator McKenzie whose approach to transparency and accountability was providing colour coded spreadsheets to the Prime Minister's office and who lost her ministerial job when it was revealed that she was spending public money as if it were LNP money, awarding grants to marginal or target seats in the 2019 election campaign. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Ayres, Senator Scarr is on his feet. Senator Scarr? Senator Scarr: Mr Acting Deputy President: reflections. I do note that in this particular case, as I understand it, Senator McKenzie resigned in relation to a disclosure about a membership of a sporting club, so I think Senator Ayres needs to be very careful in how he's presenting the historical record. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Scarr. I'll give the call back to Senator Ayres, but I will remind Senator Ayres of the wording of the motion, and perhaps he could— Senator AYRES: Well, it's Thursday afternoon. I want to point out that it is very hard to get to the policy substance, whatever it is, that sits in this incoherent, inchoate piece of general business that's been served up to us this afternoon. It could have been about the cost of living. It could have been about a whole range of serious national interest and strategic questions that sit in front of the government. But it's this. It's the silly stuff from an outfit whose Prime Minister swore himself into multiple ministries secretly and is still hanging around over there. But you want to talk about transparency, accountability and hypocrisy. We remember the approach to transparency and accountability by the previous Prime Minister and the current Leader of the Opposition, don't we? While we're on the subject of Mr Dutton, I remember his previous approach when he felt a bit challenged about some of the positions that our national airline took. When he didn't like what they said, he told them, in a phrase reeking of misogyny, to stick to their knitting. That's what he said to the leadership of our national airline. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Senator Ayres, Senator Scarr is on his feet. Senator Scarr? Senator Scarr: Relevance, Mr Acting Deputy President. If Senator Ayres could actually stick to the motion, we'd all appreciate that, I think. The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Scarr. It has been a wide-ranging debate. I'll give the call back to Senator Ayres. Senator AYRES: I would just say, in the 50 seconds that remain to me, that the problem with the motion that's in front of us is that it invites us to talk about rank hypocrisy, and that's what I've been doing. I understand that I'm likely to get cut short as we hit the 5.30 hard marker, and you'll be denied, I think, a minute and 36 seconds of further outlining of how silly this is. But I understand why it is that Australians are disappointed in the performance of the national airline in terms of its relationship with its customers and employees. The airline needs to do much better over the coming weeks and months— The ACTING DEPUTY PRESIDENT: Thank you, Senator Ayres. The debate is interrupted and you will be in continuation when the debate resumes.