Warren Snowdon (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for External Territories) Share this | Hansard source

The only thing that can be further from the truth here is the way your minister, the Deputy Prime Minister, comes into this place and parades himself as a virtuous member of this parliament, yet, as we now know, has issues. Instead of fronting up to those issues, accepting responsibility and making sure he doesn't participate in cabinet discussions about issues of relevance and importance to this country whilst his position is in doubt, he fronts up here as if nothing has happened. Things have happened, and we know he has lost the faith of many across the community. He's an appalling minister for agriculture, as we well know. As we see every day in this place, he gets up to the despatch box in a raucous display of intemperate behaviour, dribbling, spitting and carrying on like a pork chop, yet when he's taken to account and questioned about his behaviour, his citizenship, and his right to be in this place, he doesn't demur. It's as if nothing has happened.

We know things have happened, because of what's happened with our former friends in the Greens, who, when they recognised they had dual citizenship, did the right thing and stood down from the parliament. What we're seeing now from the government is a very clear representation of the appalling state of the government, its disarray and the fact they can't rely on support internally. We know the Prime Minister is stuck with the fact that the Deputy Prime Minister, his National Party partner, is crucial to his ongoing leadership issue, to his ongoing role as Prime Minister of this country, and he's protecting him. While so doing, he's making us look like absolute galahs, because of his own poor behaviour. We know what's happening in this place. This is a protection racket for the Deputy Prime Minister, which is being fronted by the Prime Minister and other senior ministers.

As you know, as a member of the—I shouldn't say that, Mr Deputy Speaker, as you're not part of this debate; you are the Deputy Speaker—however, I will make this point: the people who live in cockies corner in this place understand the disrepute the leader of the National Party has brought them into. The leader of the National Party has made rural Australians think twice about why they should be saying anything in support of the National Party in this country. Whilst the leader of the government, the Prime Minister, stands up in this place and continues to defend the Deputy Prime Minister, the rest of Australia knows, as can be seen just by looking at the media—I don't look at the media every day as some others do—what a joke this Deputy Prime Minister is and what a joke the government is for its poor behaviour.

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