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

What a sad day it is when the formerly formidable member for Eden-Monaro has had the surgery as well. They have hidden the scars, but he has become just another zombie as he walks out of this chamber now. He stood up for his clubs in the fight over poker machines, but they got to him in the last two weeks. It is a tragedy to see the formerly formidable member for Eden-Monaro come in here and just parrot the party lines. One of his last references was to the promise of new green jobs. I say to the member for Eden-Monaro as he leaves the chamber: try going to the bank manager tomorrow and getting a new home loan on the back of a job that the Labor Party and the Greens have promised you in the future. You will get laughed out of the bank.

It is with a great deal of sadness that I contribute to this matter of public importance debate to discuss the adverse impacts on the manufacturing sector of the Gillard Labor government's proposed carbon tax. It is sadness not only for the jobs of hardworking Australians, particularly in regional areas which are being put at risk by this government, but also for the slow and lingering death of the Australian Labor Party under the Julia Gillard prime ministership. We really need to ask how it all came to this. The Labor Party actually used to stand for something. It used to stand up for the workers, or so it claimed. Now they come in here like meek, little mice, who would not dare squeak their concerns on any issue. We need to ask: what happened to the light on the hill? The light is going out and it is probably because of the carbon tax. The only way to get ahead in the modern Labor Party is to come into this place, sit down, shut up and vote the way the party tells you to vote.

The member for Indi talked about the zombie-like presentations from members opposite, as they are forced not to think for themselves but to just parrot the party lines. When we walk through the doors of Parliament House of a morning, we see members from the Labor Party sticking to the script, using the lines from the focus groups. When it comes to the carbon tax, we can see the clear lines they have been told to use. 'You always have to talk about dangerous climate change—

See this speech in context