Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for Finance) Share this | Hansard source

It has now been more than 12 months since the Australian people voted the Australian Labor Party into opposition—7 September 2013. Remember that date? You should. I would have thought that, after six years of chaos, they probably needed a bit of a breather. Certainly, the Australian people thought that. I would have thought they needed to put their feet up, Labor members, with a cup of tea and maybe an Iced VoVo, to review the soap opera that was the Rudd-Gillard-Rudd administration. Certainly, I would have thought that the jumped-up member for McMahon—a failed Treasurer, a failed immigration minister—could have spent some time in some much-needed soul-searching.

At some point in the past 12 months you would have thought that Labor could have found the time—just a little bit of time—to formulate some policies and to come up with some alternative ideas. Just about everything about Labor in opposition is either a vain attempt to rewrite the narrative of their time in government or an attempt to distract themselves from the smashing defeat they copped at the last election. They will not let the nation move forward because they cannot move on from their own crushing electoral defeat. They cannot move on from the poisonous in-fighting that was at the heart of their demise. After 12 months, all they can muster—

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