Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The problem for the member in following the Leader of the Opposition's campaign of deceit is that sooner or later you run straight into the facts. The Leader of the Opposition's was out there yesterday preaching doom and gloom and telling everybody that the economy was broken. He was out there making representations about Olympic Dam. He had not even bothered to read a statement which explained what was happening in Olympic Dam. But the member who asked the question about the Northern Territory knows that all of this from the Leader of the Opposition is wrong because she knows that in her electorate she is seeing the $34 billion INPEX project.

So how has she felt as the Leader of the Opposition has been going around the country saying, 'That's it; the economy's history; there'll never be a new investment; no more coal; no more resources; no more anything'? How has she felt, given that peddling of deceit, when she has gone back home to Darwin, which is getting itself ready for this $34 billion?

To the member who asked the question: the way she should feel is embarrassed. To the Leader of the Opposition: the problem he has is that every overblown, ridiculous claim he has ever made is now coming back to haunt him, and not one of them will stand up to scrutiny because not one of them is true. It is of no surprise that not one of them is true, because the Leader of the Opposition well knows that, when he sat around a cabinet table and decided that he wanted to be party to putting a price on carbon, he would have been informed of the real impacts of a price on carbon. He has always supported putting a price on carbon. He knows that these claims are false, and his fear campaign is running out of steam every day. He is continuing to conduct himself like a mouse on a treadmill, round and round and round, but it does not get any more true or any more credible just because he keeps saying it. (Time expired)

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