Scott Buchholz (Wright, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Skills and Training) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Time and time again we see the Prime Minister come into this chamber and say that those on this side of the House continually, in the last parliament, said 'no, no, no' to legislation. So I thought I'd fact check that little bit of information. I went to no less than the Parliamentary Library, and they reliably informed me that there were 375 pieces of legislation that were debated in this place in the last parliament. I don't remember saying no to all of them. If you listen to the Prime Minister, he would have you believe that we said no to all of them. So I asked them, 'How many pieces of legislation that came before the chamber did we actually support?' How many do you reckon we supported? If you listen to him, you'd think we didn't support any of them. We actually supported 85 per cent of legislation that came here. You can't believe what this fellow says.

Our job on this side of the House is to hold government to account. We will hold you to account when you set emission targets and you miss them by this much. We'll hold you to account when you set prices for electricity and you say they're going to reduce by $275, and they actually go up by 32 per cent. We'll hold you to account when you say there'll be no new taxes but sneakily let out information from the treasury department that we'll have to increase taxes in order to meet the future revenue streams. On this side of the House we need a strong, formidable opposition, now more than ever. Under this leader and under this team, we will deliver. We will keep you accountable, and we will be the formidable— (Time expired)