Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I must say that taking note of answers is an interesting part of the Senate procedure, but I have to concur with my colleague Senator Hutchins that, if Senator Bushby’s contribution is a reflection of those opposite, it is sad. I could go into a tirade, I could go into a rant, I could raise my voice and I could throw accusations at Senator Macdonald and Senator ‘Wacka’—sorry, Senator Williams not Senator ‘Wacka’. I apologise for that. I am sorry; I was not being rude—that is his nickname.

Nothing really worries me. The day I start shaking in my boots because Senator Macdonald has thrown a challenge at me is the probably the day it is time for me to pack up, leave and go back to truck driving. While I am on that, if we talk about truck driving, if you want to demean people, Senator Macdonald, go do some homework: I did more kilometres out there in rural Australia than you ever will. If you want the challenge, Senator Macdonald, take it outside and we will have that challenge.

We are in the midst of the greatest global financial crisis since the Great Depression, and it is so totally sad to listen to that side over there and their leadership—and I am talking about their shadow Treasurer, Mr Hockey. I also watched Sunrise this morning, and I thought the Prime Minister was absolutely articulate and straight to the point. He delivered the round-up of last night’s budget in the short time he had absolutely brilliantly. Then I saw Mr Hockey being interviewed by David Koch and he really was like the rabbit in the spotlight. And I have to restate what my colleague Senator Hutchins said. At 8.09 this morning, when Mr Hockey was asked what would he do, he said the coalition’s deficit would be smaller. He probably blurted that out about three times, until Mr Koch actually said, ‘Well, how much?’ and Mr Hockey came out with a figure of $25 billion. I heard that. It is there on the internet; you can see it. What are we talking about here? The day after budget day, 18 minutes later, the leader, Mr Turnbull, came out and gave another rant that was completely at odds with Mr Hockey.

Let us get back to the more important things. They are a rabble over that side. But it is sad for working Australians to think: if the coalition still had their hand on the till, what would they do? That is the challenge that should be answered. What would you lot over there do? Sit it on your hands? Not worry about jobs? How many jobs would have gone by now? This is the scary part. Because you are still in relevance deprivation syndrome. Work Choices killed whatever goodwill you had with the Australian people. Out it went. You know that. All your internal polling showed that. You paid heaps and heaps of dollars to find out what went wrong. We will tell you what was going wrong: since you got the Senate, you got greedy. We told you for three years what Work Choices would do. You took the Australian people as fools. There was a previous Liberal leader who lost his seat because of the same miscalculated stupidity. History does repeat itself.

What would you do? Where would you have invested, and would you have invested? What would you have cut? What departments would have been slashed? How many jobs would have been slashed? How many jobs would not have been created? These are the questions being put to that side of the parliament every day. I watch the news like you all do on the other side. We get our news clippings. I have not seen one intelligent answer yet. That is what I said very clearly. It is sad because that is the best that that side of politics can come up with: ramblings from a leader, not even a coherent line, 18 or 19 minutes after the shadow treasurer bumbled his way through a TV interview out the front of this great building this morning. You cannot even get your story right because you do not know, you do not have answers.

This is a nation-building budget. Can members of the previous government puts their hand on their heart and tell us what great nation-building projects they undertook in their 12 years? I can think of one. There was a railway line from Adelaide to Darwin. Being a freight man, there is room for a rail, there is room for road, there is room for air transport. This is an island and we have great distances, and transport is an imperative. But that railway line has been a disaster; it has lost money every year. What else did that side of parliament do in the Howard era, in those 12 years? What nation-building projects did they undertake? (Time expired)