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

I am quite proud to say that I understand his frustration and the frustration of the rest of the Queensland Liberals. Having to be in the same room as the Nats is challenging enough—but to attack Labor, to attack us on what we have done in infrastructure spending to create jobs, to save at least 200,000! I know it is a four-letter word that they cannot handle—jobs—but unfortunately that is what we are all about. If I remember rightly, when we were initiating the stimulus package, I think they were all about jobs too because that is all they kept saying. Since the stimulus package has been in, since we have been the only developed country not to go into recession, do we hear about jobs from that side of the chamber? Not at all. I know it does upset them. We do not hear a thing about jobs. They do not care about workers; they do not care about small businesses.

We have seen what they are about. We have seen that they could not dent the support for the Rudd Labor government’s stimulus packages for Australia. So what do they do next? They go into their magic box of evilness, they push aside the Howard carcass and what do they drag out? Work Choices! We heard it from their leader, Mr Turnbull, the other day in Sydney on Monday and Tuesday. ‘Deflect all the good stuff that the Rudd Labor government’s doing. Let’s talk about Work Choices. I’m not going to rule it in, I’m not going to rule it out; I’ve got no idea; I don’t even know if I’m going to be the leader come Monday.’ That did not work. They could not condemn our stimulus packages. They could not condemn us for saving Australian workers. They could not condemn us for supporting Australia’s small and medium enterprises.

So what did they pull out next? On Wednesday, ‘Yank, yank, let’s pull the race chain. Let’s plead for another Tampa, something to save us.’ Into the box of evil they go again and they push everything aside—the carcasses and all the leftovers from those bad, wasted years—and they pull out ‘Let’s pick on asylum seekers.’ It is absolutely unbelievable to see the amount of time wasted in this chamber on MPIs from those opposite who are reliving the dark Howard years. I have to tell you, Madam Acting Deputy President, for those opposite: he lost! He is no longer the leader of your party. He is no longer in Bennelong. He has gone. Forget it. Cut him loose. Get with the play.

To go to the Road Transport Reform (Dangerous Goods) Repeal Bill 2009, let us make no mistake about this. The coalition, in their 11½ years—it felt like 12½—did absolutely nothing to improve Australia’s road transport laws from 1996 to 2005, before I came in here. How do I know? Because I shared the frustration with Western Australia’s truck drivers. I shared the frustration that Western Australian truck drivers in Kewdale could hook up two 48-foot freezer pans, chiller pans, dry pans or flat tops. They could chuck the dolly underneath and they could choof off out of the trucking areas of Kewdale and Welshpool and they could head north. They could get to Wubin, after traversing that disgraceful piece of bitumen that we call Highway 1, the Great Northern Highway, where road trains pass each other. For those opposite, road trains are two trailers with a dolly in between before they get to Wubin and then they get a third one on.