Malcolm Turnbull says he has excoriated the three senior ministers who left parliament early on Thursday evening, leaving his government exposed to an embarrassing hit by Labor, but he’s glad it happened in the first week of parliament because it will not happen again.
Senior Coalition ministers Christopher Pyne, Mathias Cormann, George Brandis, and Michael Keenan staged a media blitz on Friday, along with Turnbull, in a mass mea culpa. They appeared on numerous radio and television stations to explain why the government’s parliamentary “stuff up” on Thursday did not mean it was not in control.
Turnbull told 3AW’s Neil Mitchell that the only reason Labor had won some procedural votes in parliament on Thursday, despite his government’s majority, was because some Coalition ministers had left the building early “when they should not have”.
“Two of them were cabinet ministers and one of them was a minister,” Turnbull said.
“They’re grown ups, they’re experienced parliamentarians, they knew that they should not have left and they left early because they thought they’d get away with it. [But] they’ve been caught out, they’ve been embarrassed, they’ve been humiliated, they’ve been excoriated, and it won’t happen again.”
The Turnbull government lost votes on the floor of the House of Representatives on Thursday evening after Labor moved to bring a motion calling for a banking royal commission.
Labor had capitalised on the fact that senior Coalition figures, including the immigration minister, Peter Dutton, and two Western Australians, the justice minister, Michael Keenan, and social services minister, Christian Porter, had left the chamber early.
It was the first time a majority government had lost a vote on the floor of the House since 1962.
It left the government red-faced and fuming, with Bronwyn Bishop telling Sky News on Thursday night that the event was an “absolute farce”.
“Honestly I cannot believe what happened today,” Bishop said.
“With only 76 people and one in the chair, everyone had to be around. And the fact that some people on the first week went home early before the end of the adjournment debate is an absolute disgrace.”
Keenan apologised to his colleagues on Friday, admitting on ABC radio that Malcolm Turnbull had “made his view clear to me that he thinks that [was] unacceptable”.
“Every member should be available for divisions at all times and I haven’t failed in that responsibility in the past and won’t be failing in that responsibility again in the future,” Keenan said.
“It’s a decision that I shouldn’t have taken and obviously I’m sorry that I did. It was a work-related matter but that’s obviously no excuse.”
Christopher Pyne, the leader of government business in the lower house, also conceded on Nine’s Today program that the government had misstepped: “There is no doubt what happened late yesterday afternoon was a stuff up. Those people who weren’t there learnt a valuable lesson, everyone learnt a valuable lesson.”
“It’s a salutary lesson for anyone who went home before the House rose yesterday afternoon. I’m absolutely certain that they won’t do that again,” he said.
“[But] these were three procedural votes and quite frankly, people out there in the community are more worried about jobs. They’re more worried about feeding themselves and their children than they are about three adjournment votes in the House of Representatives,” he said.
George Brandis said the vote loss shouldn’t have occurred, but he heard Keenan apologising on radio and people needed to put things in perspective.
“But I think we have to put this into perspective ... this was a motion of a procedural character, it wasn’t a vote on a bill,” he said.
“It was a political stunt that Bill Shorten decided to pull and he got away with it because there was indiscipline on the part of a small number of my colleagues.”
Opposition leader Bill Shorten denied on Friday Labor’s tactics amounted to a stunt.
“Labor wants to have justice for banking victims,” Shorten said. “Labor wants a banking royal commission. The Liberals just want to go home. I don’t think that the challenge of tens of thousands of people, a generation of Australians who have been ripped off and let down – it is not a stunt, it is not a laughing matter.”
Shorten reiterated that Labor would work with the government where possible, but said Malcom Turnbull was “turning bungling into an art form”, and his promises of stable government had been shown to be false.
“He doesn’t have a stable majority. It’s taken them precisely two days ... to prove that Mr Turnbull can’t manage the parliament,” Shorten said.
Labor senator Stephen Conroy said Tony Abbott’s recent complaint that this government was not in power was true: “It’s not often I agree with Tony Abbott, but this is a government that’s in office but not actually running the country,” Conroy told ABC radio.
“You’ve seen again ... complacency, arrogance, ministers who think they can just leave the building without permission from anybody.
Turnbull rejected that point on Friday, saying his government is running the country.
“We are in office and we are in power,” he said.
