Deputy opposition leader Sussan Ley has compared the arrival of the First Fleet to Elon Musk’s SpaceX seeking to reach Mars, in an Australia Day address.
Her comments come a day after opposition leader Peter Dutton announced a newly created role of shadow minister for government efficiency – replicating Musk’s idea of a Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE).
Ley, the Member for Farrer, gave a speech to a church service in her town of Albury on Sunday. Praising Australia as “peaceful, prosperous and free”, she said citizens should be proud of 26 January.
“Because, despite the black arm brigade, who will be marching in the streets of our cities today, the fact is the story of Australia is one that is objectively good,” she said.
“We need to reject what those mobs are saying today through their loudspeakers and their iPhones.
“The problem with those activists is they are so fixated with projecting themselves as survivors that they leave no room for us to come together as citizens.”
In the opening part of the address, a transcript of which was distributed by her office, Ley spoke about the arrival of British settlers at Sydney Cove in 1788 – and drew parallels with Musk, the world’s richest person, Tesla CEO and Trump confidante.
“All those years ago those ships did not arrive – as some would have you believe – as invaders. They did not come to destroy or to pillage,” Ley said.
“In what could be compared to Elon Musk’s SpaceX’s efforts to build a new colony on Mars, men in boats arrived on the edge of the known world to embark on that new experiment. A new experiment and a new society.”
“And just like astronauts arriving on Mars those first settlers would be confronted with a different and strange world, full of danger, adventure and potential. From that moment our national story stood at a crossroads.”
Ley’s invocation of Musk comes a day after Dutton’s frontbench reshuffle named Jacinta Nampijinpa Price to a new role responsible for “government efficiency”.
Some Canberra observers have theorised Coalition members may be seeking to again catch the attention of Musk, who has regularly commented on elections around the world, making favourable remarks about conservative politicians to his 214 million followers on X, the social media platform he owns.
Musk has previously strongly criticised the Albanese Labor government for its efforts to regulate big tech companies and control online misinformation.
Several Coalition MPs have urged Dutton to follow Trump in seeking to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement, a move the Liberal leader says he won’t follow. But mining billionaire Gina Rinehart, who has been regularly linked to Dutton, has also called on the opposition leader to learn from Trump and Musk.
“If we are sensible, we should set up a DOGE immediately, reduce government waste, government tape and regulations,” she told The Australian newspaper.
Rinehart held a meeting with Musk the morning after Trump’s election win, and they posed together for a photo at the president’s Mar-a-Lago resort.
Dutton has recently stepped up his criticism of the growth in the number of public servants and hinted at cutting that figure, as well as criticising “woke” progressive causes.
In a press conference on Sunday, Dutton said the idea behind the proposed government efficiency role was to “identify where taxpayers’ money is being wasted”, but he did not deny the title had been inspired by Musk and Trump.
Anthony Albanese said he was worried about political polarisation taking hold in Australia, calling on citizens to “show our common interest” in comments on 26 January.
The prime minister was again critical that Dutton had decided not to join him at the national citizenship ceremony in Canberra, and claimed his opponent was always “looking for the wedge”.
“I don’t want to see the polarisation that’s occurred in some democracies. I want Australians to be united, to show our common interest, ” Albanese said.