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

Mr President, the Australian people are hearing the Labor Party interjecting and I say to the Australian people who are listening to this that that is because the Labor Party know where the truth lies. They know how smelly this whole process has been in the way they have conducted themselves. They have this arrogant approach: it is my way or the highway. ‘Get out of the way,’ is what the Prime Minister said. That is his form of negotiation: ‘Get out of my way and let me do my dirty work.’ At the same time the connotations are that there is a sort of moral threat if we do not put this package through—as if Mr Rudd is an omnipotent force of knowledge and you must listen to him and deal with his wishes within 48 hours.

If the Labor Party had openly engaged, if they had genuinely wanted to engage, with the coalition then we would have a stimulus package today that would be working. It would be underway. So the problems with the stimulus package rest on the heads of those opposite, because it is the Labor Party’s arrogance that has delivered us this situation. They cannot blame all the people all the time for their own mistakes.