Kay Hull (Riverina, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Today I rise to support the Wheat Marketing Amendment Bill 2007. In listening to the debate that has emanated from this chamber I have been staggered to hear some of the untruths and false claims made in many of the speeches from those on the opposing side of the House, commencing last evening with one of the first speakers, the member for Hotham. It is no secret that drought has claimed many victims in my electorate of Riverina and right across Australia. What angered me most during this very volatile time of drought was what happened when the current Leader of the Opposition made an obvious and deliberate decision to challenge the member for Brand and chose to lay his credentials on the table for his party colleagues to judge his performance—and perhaps the differences between what lengths he and the member for Brand were prepared to go to in order to lead the opposition.

What the current Leader of the Opposition must have been thinking when he was in his former portfolio as shadow for foreign affairs and sitting on that bench behind the member for Brand, when he was the Leader of the Opposition, was, ‘How can I do this to the best effect? This is a case of war, and in war there are obviously going to be some deaths and many casualties’. I am sure that this was how the member for Griffith and Leader of the Opposition was thinking: ‘Who could we dispense with in the field?’ The phrase ‘in the field’ would have struck him. He would have thought: ‘Of course! “In the field” means farmers. We haven’t anything in common with farmers; we’re not interested in what happens with country people. We have limited representation in rural and regional areas. I think that we can dispense with those pesky critters out there—farmers—and particularly with wheat farmers. There seems to be a bit of an issue around this AWB thing. It seems to have a hint of sensationalism; not only that, there are a lot of people on the world stage watching. The Americans are watching and the Canadians are watching. There are quite a few in the international scene watching this issue.’ It was an aspiring leader’s dream come true.

The poor old member for Brand thought that the aggressive and sensationalist questioning tactics of his trusted foreign affairs spokesman would help him. And haven’t we all heard him shrieking things like ‘Saddam’s bagman’ across the chamber at the Minister for Foreign Affairs? That most insulting of displays came from the now Leader of the Opposition in his quest to lead his party and to bring about the undoing of the member for Brand as the leader. We saw his true colours, his nasty retorts and his accusations. His position was one of judge, jury and executioner of all those in the AWB and beyond. Basically, his tactics in the House were puzzling. Then, eventually, we came to the point—

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