Mark Furner (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I also rise today to contribute to answers provided by Senator Conroy in today's question time. What surprises me a little bit is where the opposition are going. They started the week claiming that they were going to be the alternative government, and they were going to step out of the dark as the opposition and all of a sudden become this alternative government. But not once have we heard anything from them during question time on policy. What we have heard today, and consistently throughout this week, is attacks on scurrilous claims against Senator Conroy about some involvement of a previous minister through the New South Wales government about some chalet he owned. There is nothing in it, yet they come along here with these scurrilous gutter-raking claims that there was something involved in that.

I put it to the opposition to start acting like an alternative government. Do not come in here and produce this nonsense. Let us get over this fact about the carbon price. The carbon price does not even get a mention out there in voter land. Go out there and talk to people about it, like I do, and you will find that people do not even mention it, because it has no impact. It has not had any impact whatsoever. People are still buying their legs of lamb, and they are not having to pay $100 like the coalition indicated. A $100 leg of lamb—where do you really come from when you come up with those scare campaigns about the effects of the carbon price? No wonder people do not believe your leader when they are coming up with this sort of nonsense. Once again, come up with some policy. Today, have you heard the grandstand policy? The 'Tony troppo tax' and we are going to shift all the people out from South Australia, Victoria, Brisbane and New South Wales, and put them up in northern Australia: Karratha, Cairns, Townsville, up in Darwin. The 'Tony troppo tax'. This is your policy. When challenged today in question time by Senator Carr, you stepped back from it and said: 'No, that has got nothing to do with us. We never suggested that'. Unbelievable.

One of the other questions provided today was on superannuation. I stand proud, as a previous union official and a union secretary, of course, that we were part of a government—