Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

In rising to contribute to this debate I feel compelled to respond to some of the allegations, comments and contributions that Senator Sterle has made. One of the incredible claims is that Senator Sterle said he will happily stand condemned for doing it properly. Senator Sterle has never, ever been condemned for doing it properly. No one has ever accused him of doing it properly. The government that he is a part of certainly are condemned for their lack of action in fulfilling their promises and providing the houses that they promised to Indigenous communities.

In reflecting on what Senator Sterle said, I will acknowledge that Senator Sterle is a true journeyman. His rambling, incoherent and, quite frankly, disingenuous attacks on members of the opposition, because we dared to disagree with some of the things that he said, did him no credit at all. Senator Sterle used a number of emotive words in describing the opposition’s contribution, questioning whether we had been to visit Indigenous communities, as he detailed his extensive travels around the world and into many other communities. This is not a chamber in which to boast of one’s travel logs or to boast about how many people you visited to promote the shameful emperor who has no clothes who now leads the Labor Party. It was a clamour to ingratiate himself with the emperor of the Labor Party—Red Rudd—because Senator Sterle, as I said, is a journeyman and he is interested in promotion. So he tries to ingratiate himself by abusing and attacking the opposition, rather than accept the very necessary facts.

The disappointment is manifest because the Labor Party clearly refuse to confront reality. I will tell you about the reality of this case. They made a number of grandiloquent promises, promises that they have simply failed to deliver upon. That is beyond deniability.