Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

So Bruce Wilson, the Prime Minister's ex-boyfriend, has said, 'Well, what happens is that Ralph Blewitt—he's a funny bloke—used to bury the money in the backyard.' Of course, why do we need a bank when you have got a perfectly good backyard! That is where you put money these days. You put money there because you want to be transparent and you want to be above board. What was the source of this subterranean benevolence? Where did it come from? Why would people be burying money in a backyard? I do not know, but they were probably getting it from somewhere. Who would know? Anyway, there is a bit of a pattern here, and it goes with the Craig Thomson story and it goes with the Peter Slipper story and it is all part of this 'there's something that's not right'. The Australian people wake up and go: 'Who on earth is running the show? Who are these people? Where did they come from?' Let us go back. Imagine we had a story of Menzies or someone and somebody said, 'Oh, yes, and then he had this mate who was a bit of a one.' You see we have the description of Ralph Blewitt by the Prime Minister: he was 'an imbecile', he was a 'sexist pig' and he was 'an idiot'. They are the sorts of thing that I want to hear my Prime Minister say at a press conference! That is the sort of character I expect to be running the country! And who was their associate back in the 1990s? Well, it was a person who was getting money from somewhere and just hanging around the petunias burying the dough. There might be still a bit there. We should go and have a look and we could give it back to the AWU and probably back to the members. That is probably where it could go. Maybe it could go back via the way it got there, through this slush fund. That is possibly how it could go back there. So this is running the country! The country has descended into anarchy. It is totally and utterly out of control. This is why we can find ourselves $252.9 billion in debt as I speak now. This is why we borrowed in excess of $3 billion last week, because of this absolute pandemonium palace and every day just when you think it could not get any stranger, that it could not get any stranger than Craig Thomson or that it could not get any stranger than Peter Slipper, Bruce Wilson then comes out to help the Prime Minister out and, by gosh, didn't he help her! What help! Such friends like that!

There are still some serious questions that need to be asked and I will ask just one. So there is only one question and it is serious: did the Prime Minister witness the power of attorney? I do not want to hear the answer that she has witnessed lots of powers of attorney and she has witnessed lots of documents. Did she witness the power of attorney that was responsible for being able to move a house from Mr Wilson's name into Mr Blewitt's name and what was the reason for that? Did she witness it on the day and at the time that they signed the document? I ask because if you do not witness it at the time they sign a document, then, as any solicitor will tell you, you have done something very, very naughty. Anyway here we are and we have got the NBN story and we could go on with the ceiling insulation and houses burning down story but let us stop it there and see if we ever get an answer.