Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is wonderful when Senator Sterle starts giving us Churchillian quotes because there is just so much ammunition that you can go on all day. Senator Sterle started with his misquote of Churchill’s statement on 1 October 1939 about the Soviet Union being a puzzle inside a riddle wrapped in an enigma. This could possibly show us Labor Party policy on economics. This could easily be a quotation about exactly where they are going to spend their $20 billion infrastructure fund. It was good to hear Senator Sterle say that they are going to spend it all in regional Australia. He quoted that here today, and we look forward to that—or maybe that will just become another promise that falls by the wayside. But Senator Sterle, on his game as he usually is, has now announced to all and sundry that all of the $20 billion is going to be spent in regional Australia. I welcome and applaud that, but I look forward to the detail hitting the table. What is so incredible and fatuous about a Labor government is that there is no detail. There are just statements and more glitter than you could see at certain parades held in Sydney at certain times. It is an amazing position where we always get these marvellous statements which they can never ever back up. There is Fuelwatch, grocery watch and school watch, and on and on it goes but they never actually seem to come forward with the detail.

I commend Senator Moore’s statement about health, but I want to go through Labor’s record on health. The statistics are that people in regional areas are 35 per cent more likely to die within five years of a diagnosis of cancer than patients in larger cities. This is with state Labor governments looking after health. The Queensland Cancer Council says that it is worried that some rural cancer patients may be deciding against treatment because of higher accommodation and travel costs. Rural patients requiring radiation therapy often need to stay in a major city. In 1987 patients got an allowance of $30 a night. Today under Labor in Queensland what is it per night? It is $30. This is a clear statement, in dollar terms, of how Labor sees regional Australia. Regional Australians have been left completely bereft. Labor go through all the platitudes and the rhetoric of talking about the regional issue but they are very, very lacking in delivery and even further lacking in detail.

While we are on Churchillian quotes, another thing Churchill said was: ‘An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.’ Maybe that was Senator Sterle if he had known that quote rather than the one he made up. He probably realised that that is possibly a quote about independence—the one who hopes that the crocodile will eat him last. Currently the Independent who is standing for Lyne, Mr Oakeshott, not only is grabbing the glory for things he did not have anything to do with but says he is going to work very closely with the Labor government, and I think that is something that the people of Lyne need to know. The only way you will ever get anything through this parliament is to get a majority in the other house and a majority in this house. Nothing has ever got through this parliament with only one vote. I am not casting any aspersions against their characters, but not one vote has ever been determined by Mr Katter or Mr Windsor. They are completely and utterly irrelevant. They are very nice people but they are completely and utterly irrelevant, because they fail to have the conviction to nail their colours to the mast.

What is interesting about Mr Oakeshott is that he will not actually come forward and say what he would do if all his stars were aligned and it really did come down to his vote to determine who would hold the treasury benches. You would think a man of conviction, a man who stands by his people would be able to say, ‘If that were the case, I would either back the Labor Party or I would back the conservative side of government.’ It is a very simple question.