House debates

Thursday, 17 March 2016

Adjournment

Australia-Israel Labor Dialogue

12:32 pm

Photo of Michael DanbyMichael Danby (Melbourne Ports, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | | Hansard source

I would like to conclude my remarks from earlier in the day. My speech was on the melancholy duty of MPs to use parliamentary privilege on certain judicious occasions. I was discussing the fact that Mr Bob Carr had confined his most violent speeches to all-male barbecues in the backyards of Western Sydney. One of his angry barbecue remarks concerned 'the Judeaisation of East Jerusalem', which should put him beyond the bounds of civilised debate, but in the last few days he has been far worse. Carr has offered to speak at a fundraiser in the Northern Territory so long as they pass an anti-Israel resolution. I am sure that the people who paying for the block booking of seats at this fundraiser do not know that Carr was trying to engineer this unethical, cash-for-comment side deal. He, like the other former Labor Foreign Minister from Western Australia, is a distraction. We have an imminent federal election, which Labor has every chance of winning. Unpleasant cranks like Bob Carr should just fade away.

Question agreed to.

Federation Chamber adjourned at 12:34