Lindsay Tanner (Melbourne, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Finance and Deregulation) Share this | Hansard source

I have just been advised that the member for Mackellar is unopposed in her preselection to run around the track again. We can now see why. In fact, at the time I am referring to she was on the verge of becoming leader of the Liberal Party. There is a very important contemporary point here. The person involved in this dossier is the now Senator Ronaldson. He was then the member for Ballarat. He was then a relatively obscure junior frontbencher. He is now right at the very centre, right at the very heart, of the Turnbull leadership of the Liberal Party. He is the new Bill Heffernan. He is the hit man, the dirt man and the numbers man for the Leader of the Opposition. He is not some mad uncle, he is not the member for Mackellar; he is right at the heart of the team. This is a longstanding continuing pattern of skulduggery, spivery, scares and smears and it tells you everything about what the Liberal Party is.

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