Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Education) Share this | Hansard source

I'm sorry the Prime Minister is not here for the matter of public importance because, as you know, Deputy Speaker Claydon, I'm here to help. I don't want to be a dobber—no-one likes being a dobber—but he needs to know what's been going on as he travels the world. I've been watching those opposite very closely in the last two question times, and, I've got to say, it has been like watching a funeral procession over the last couple of days. The PM was at the dispatch box delivering his big zingers, and there's been a deathly silence amongst those opposite. They've got their heads down. They're looking at their mobile phones, all checking the latest Newspoll results, trying to figure out if they can win with a primary vote that is lower than it was at the last election: 'Can I still win? Is my great career going to end now?' I've seen this tragedy unfold before. Very soon they will start looking around the caucus room: 'Who can boost my chances? Who can invest in my greatness? Who can make me what I should be?' Let me assure you all: someone is ready for that tap on the shoulder. The ever-ambitious member for Rankin is already out there choosing the curtain colours at the Lodge. He's ready to tear down those Rabbitohs posters and insert his own Brisbane Broncos posters at the Lodge. The lad from Logan City is in a hurry.

I've been reading a bit lately, and I was taken by that very famous quote by Shakespeare's The Tragedy of Julius Caesar. At one point Caesar ponders:

Yond Cassius has a lean and hungry look; He thinks too much: such men are dangerous.

Then I read another piece—not quite Shakespeare but comedy and tragedy in equal measure. It was the 5,699-word puff piece on the Treasurer written by Deborah Snow. I'm not sure 'Deborah Snow' is not a pseudonym for Jim Chalmers, actually. It was glorious coverage of his fabulous fitness regime, his intellectualism and his good humour. It was 5,699 words of gushing praise. I was running around the lake this morning and I half expected to see the Treasurer walking across the lake, because it was such a stunning piece.

But I was struck by this quote from the Treasurer in this gushing piece of fluff:

You know, every career has an arc and I like reading about how people think about the end of the arc.

Prime Minister, a word to the wise: he thinks too much. Such men are dangerous.

While the Labor Party have started plotting and scheming behind the scenes, they've already forgotten the people they were elected to represent in the first place. This Prime Minister said he would govern for all Australians. Tell that to the timber workers in my electorate of Gippsland and tell that to the irrigation communities within the Murray-Darling Basin, because this government and this Prime Minister are about to waste $22 billion of taxpayers' money buying back water from productive agricultural use. It is a plan that will force up the price of groceries for Australian families in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis. What genius could ever support an idea that would involve forcing up grocery prices and making it harder to produce food in the nation's food bowl in the middle of a cost-of-living crisis? I can understand, though, why those opposite don't understand the Murray-Darling Basin, because none of them live in the Murray Darling Basin.

See this speech in context