Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Yes. If this signing ceremony had been done after the decision by the Independents as to who would form the government then you might say this was a marriage of convenience, but indeed it was not. This signing ceremony was done before the decision of the Independents was known, so this is no false marriage; this is no accident. This was a deliberate decision by the Australian Labor Party to hop into bed with the Australian Greens. There is a very old saying, as you would be acutely aware, Mr Acting Deputy President Cameron, that if you sleep with dogs you wake up with fleas. The fleas on the body of the Australian Labor Party will not be small ones; they will be very substantial lumps. We are already seeing the impact of the fleas on the body of what was a great political party, not one that I agree with philosophically but one that has served a very useful purpose in the political process and one that took some decisions, particularly in the early nineties under Hawke and Keating, which I actually thought were good for this country—and I will give credit where credit is due—to open up this economy. So I have given them their due, but the once great Australian Labor Party with this unholy alliance finds itself with a primary vote of 29 per cent. If there is not one senator opposite—not down the back but opposite—who does not think for one minute that part of that is due to this unholy alliance then they are utterly delusional.

We know what the other part is. The other part is the great lie in Australian politics: 'There will be no carbon tax under a government I lead'. That is part of the 29 per cent, but the other part of the 29 per cent is the Australian Labor Party ceding political ground to the Australian Greens for utter convenience in a desperate attempt to maintain government. We have seen, in a desperate attempt to show that the decision to change from one Prime Minister to another was appropriate, the Prime Minister of this country leave your political party, Mr Acting Deputy President Cameron, hanging out to dry, not for the short term and not for the medium term but for the long term. It is absolutely decision time now for the Australian Labor Party as to how you are going to conduct yourselves in relation to this relationship. We should not see another example like today's of an unseemly sight when a new senator is required to read their CV into Hansard to justify their position. That is unseemly and that is an exercise in complete and utter futility. As I said earlier, I hope that today's spectacle is not repeated in this place.

I will finish on this note, as I know my colleague Senator Brandis wants to speak as well. If this is not reflected upon today by those of you opposite, if you are not prepared to accept that this relationship and this unholy alliance have the ability to destroy the Australian Labor Party and if you are not prepared to stand up and say, 'We are not prepared to tolerate that,' then you will die by your own swords.