Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Regional Development and Infrastructure) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A few days ago we watched in amazement as the Prime Minister puffed himself up and told the press gallery that he was, indeed, a strong leader. It was unusual, because normally prime ministers don't deliver themselves a pep conference in public. Awkward! Yes, very awkward, but not as awkward as the feeling that these coalition MPs felt when they went back to their electorates on the weekend and said, 'We have no money for your school upgrades, no money to fix your dodgy hospitals or your dodgy roads, but we're going to spend $122 million on a waste of money on a postal survey.'

We do need strong leadership in this country. We need strong leadership to fix the power bills, which have gone up by 27 per cent in New South Wales alone. We need strong leadership on a Deputy Prime Minister who has confessed he might be a few roos loose in his citizenship top paddock. We need strong leadership on the NBN, which has the Prime Minister's fingerprints all over it, and hour after hour, day after day, is dropping out with no relief in sight for customers. We need the Prime Minister to stop talking about strong leadership and start delivering it. Get your house in order, because if you can't govern yourselves, you can't govern the country.