Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you very much, Madam Deputy President. It's great to have you back. I too rise to take note of questions asked at question time, specifically by Senator Chisholm, around the Queensland election. What we know—having been up in Queensland over the course of that state election—is that this was definitely a state election fought on state issues. For Labor Party senators to come into this place and argue otherwise merely misrepresents what happened on the ground. There are still many votes to be counted, and we should wait until all the facts are in and we have a full analysis before those from the other side start crowing. It's too cute by half.

Once again, we had a policy-free zone in the Senate question time from the Labor Party. It's very rich to come in here and talk about the principles of the presumptive Premier of Queensland when, yet again, we had from those who seek to be in government a question time in the Senate that was devoid of any issue that any Australian gives two hoots about. There were no questions on health policy, no questions on our record investment into education, no questions around energy policy—the No. 1 topic for those out in the community—on how to bring power prices down and how to actually ensure businesses can invest in creating jobs, and not paying off their power bills. Again, there was not one question today from the team who seeks to lead this nation on anything of interest to anyone in the nation.

Really, it encapsulates what's wrong with politics right here today. We're talking about the ALP crowing about a potential election result in Queensland and of a potential Premier elected on the back of One Nation preferences. They want to talk about a principled approach. Well, let's talk about the fact that you're very happy to take the preferences if that leads you to the premiership palace. You want to walk around pretending you're principled when, meanwhile, you're stacking those preferences in your back pocket and marching into the premiership. If you succeed in winning majority government, it will be riding on the coat-tails of One Nation, and you will owe them everything if the Labor Party wins a majority government in Queensland.

I went up to Queensland to look at some things with universities and some Defence issues. I had the opportunity to get into the state seats of Keppel and Rockhampton and I spoke to people on the ground in Townsville and in Emerald. They were not concerned about the issues that the Labor Party has raised here; they were concerned about power prices, regional jobs, energy prices and our meat processors. For Rockhampton, the meat capital of Australia—but, please, don't tell my producers down south—that is the No. 1 issue.

We saw the phenomenon that assisted the state Labor government throughout the weekend—the use of trade unions and GetUp! in state election campaigns—in my home state of Victoria, with the use of firefighters, in particular, through the last state election campaign. Daniel Andrews is still paying the debt back to the UFU, and we see that played out in our state issues around the CFA day in, day out.

North Queenslanders aren't afraid of regional mining jobs. The backflip by Ms Palaszczuk during the course of that campaign was absolutely reprehensible. In the former safe seat of Rockhampton, you guys are under pressure there, because in the preselection you rolled Margaret, the candidate that supported the Adani mine and supported regional jobs. You rolled her in the regional state preselection and you put big bad Barry in there. Do you know what? Margaret is ahead in the polling in Rockhampton. That shows that regional Queenslanders, particularly in the north, support mining, support jobs and know how to grow their regional economies. It's a pity that the state Labor team actually backflipped on growing those jobs in North Queensland.

I really hope that the Labor Party tomorrow can dig deep and give us some policy questions, because we are very keen to talk about what we have planned as a legislative agenda. (Time expired)