Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

First of all, I congratulate Senator Nash on the wonderful job she is doing as the Assistant Minister for Health. As someone who comes from a rural and regional area and who pays particular interest to rural and regional health ministers, I very much appreciate Senator Nash's attention to detail here. Not only do I have admiration for her in the way that she is performing her ministerial job, but I particularly like the open and frank way in which she has addressed the questions that have been asked of her in the last couple of days. This is typical of the Labor Party: it did not take them long to get down into the gutter. But Senator Nash, in her response, was open and frank. She did what any minister should do: immediately she was aware of additional information, she returned to the Senate and made a complete and open statement about it, which is as required. I congratulate Senator Nash for the way she did that.

But the Labor Party are talking about standards? I said to Senator Conroy by way of interjection during his questions: remember Mr Mike Kaiser, the Labor Party member in the Queensland parliament who was thrown out of the Queensland parliament for electoral fraud and employed by NBN Co? According to the testimony of the head of NBN Co, he was employed because the minister suggested to the head of NBN Co that perhaps he should have a look at Mr Mike Kaiser as a recipient of the $450,000 government relations job in NBN Co—a government instrumentality that somehow needed a government relations officer to deal with its owner, who was the government! It was Senator Conroy who was asking these questions today. Time does not permit me to go through some of the indiscretions of Labor ministers from day one. I will not go into the fact that I know a number of former Labor politicians from Queensland who are in jail for electoral fraud. We will not go there.

When Senator Conroy, Senator McLucas and Senator Wong raise these questions, they open up a Pandora's box that may well encourage a closer look at some Labor Party appointments. We all know about Mr Rudd's former chief of staff, Mr David Epstein. His wife was appointed to run the Canberra office of the major lobbying outfit Government Relations Australia when Mr Epstein was the Prime Minister's chief of staff, the most senior and influential person within the Rudd Labor government.

As I said, give me five hours and I can go on about these things. Senator Conroy and Senator McLucas have started resorting to these sorts of activities so early in their time in opposition, as they have demonstrated here. One could ask other embarrassing questions about Labor Party politicians. I was in the parliament when a group of people almost knocked down the front door of Parliament House. Anyone who has seen the front doors of Parliament House would wonder how anyone could possibly go close to knocking them down. They are made of steel and strong glass. If anyone bothered to go back and look at the TV footage of that, they may see an awfully exact likeness of a current senior member of the Labor Party amongst those who were trying to knock down—