House debates

Monday, 21 November 2016

Questions without Notice

Deputy Prime Minister

2:41 pm

Photo of Joel FitzgibbonJoel Fitzgibbon (Hunter, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Agriculture) Share this | | Hansard source

My question is to the Acting Prime Minister. Can he confirm that he doctored his Hansard, forced out the departmental secretary who dared to question his integrity, announced the relocation of the APVMA to his own electorate without releasing the cost-benefit analysis and is free-ranging against his colleagues on the Murray-Darling Basin contrary to his Prime Minister? Does the Acting Prime Minister agree that, with this trail of chaos and division in his wake, he is looking more like the Liberal Prime Minister every day?

2:42 pm

Photo of Barnaby JoyceBarnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | | Hansard source

It's a little like having the drunk lecture at the temperance league! It is the most amazing thing. Let's try to go through the member for Hunter's allegations in seriatim. No. 1: I have never doctored the Hansard, and this has been dealt with over and over again. It is like the only feather you have got to fly with, and even that has fallen out years ago, and yet there you are, sort of strung up by a featherless wing. The next one: do we want to move APVMA? Yes, we do. We on this side of the House believe in decentralisation. We believe in not only moving APVMA to Hunter but moving RIRDC to Wagga and moving GRDC to Toowoomba. Yes, we believe in decentralisation. We believe in moving the Fisheries Research and Development Corporation to Adelaide. We believe in the largesse of our nation being spread more evenly across it. And, of course, what you believe in is just keeping it all in one little spot.

I acknowledge that we have a vision for this nation. We are proud of the turnaround we have seen in agricultural exports. We are proud that we are getting a better return through the farm gate. We are proud of the fact that, when we speak to the pork producers, they are getting record returns; when we speak to the sugar producers, they are getting record returns; when we speak to the cattle producers, they are getting record returns; and, when we speak to the meat sheep producers, they are getting record returns. We are proud of the work we do and we are proud of the result we get. We are proud of the fact that we believe in dams and that we are driving a dams project ahead. We admonish the Labor Party for the fact that, if they ever got into government, they would take away the funding for dams, because they have no vision. They are visionless. They are a philosophers club. That is all they are.

The other thing we acknowledge is that it is great that they have let the member for Hunter off the leash for his second question on a policy issue in a year! So that is good. We worry about you in our question time preparations, member for Hunter. We worry about you. We know how it goes: you would wander down, you would see the member for Watson and you would say: 'Please, can I have a question today? Please, can have a question today?' And he would reply to you something similar to what Mr Hunter down in South Australia replied to me, that sort of colourful invective, that: 'Today is your day. Today's your day.' And I would like to acknowledge the fact that he has managed to get above question 13. He has got above question 13, so you are having a good day in the office. So you should want to see more of me, because it is the only hope you have.