Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Hansard source

I take up the member for Moreton’s interjection. I said that the Greens have never helped to create a job in regional Australia and they are a direct threat to every person’s job in many of our traditional industries. Has anyone in this place ever taken a close look at the Greens elected representatives and taken notice of where they draw their vote? Let us start with Victoria—in Melbourne, where the new member for Melbourne recorded a healthy 36 per cent of the primary vote. Let us next move a few kilometres out of the city to the seat of La Trobe, where the Greens picked up 12 per cent and handed the seat to the Labor Party. There is a pattern of that right around Australia. There are 44 Labor MPs who owe their seats to the Greens, but we will talk about that topic on another day.

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