Joanne Ryan (Lalor, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today, on US election day, hoping, with many of my colleagues and with women around the world, that the US will deliver its first female president at the end of the day's count. This is a deep hope on this side of the chamber and, I am sure, for many opposite as well. It takes me back to thinking about our former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard. Of course, we have already delivered a female leader in this country—Prime Minister Julia Gillard—who served in the seat that I now hold, the seat of Lalor. It took me to a place of compare and contrast. I was thinking about a minority government and the careful negotiations that were done with crossbenchers and senators and the prolific legislative program that was carried out in that era. It left me aghast and asking the question that our journalists around the country are now asking: what is the point of this Prime Minister, who cannot seem to negotiate with anybody or have a legislative agenda, which leaves us in this chamber with constructs around scaring the Australian public rather than governing, no matter how many times there is a new three-word slogan? 'Jobs and growth'—how is that going? It is not. 'Stop the deficit'—how is that going? What has happened to the deficit? (Time expired)