Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate take note of the answer given by the Minister for Broadband, Communications and the Digital Economy (Senator Conroy) to a question without notice asked by Senator Back today relating to Western Australia and the Prime Minister.

It is one thing for an opposition to criticise the current Prime Minister, Ms Gillard, for her grotesque failure of policy in this country, but I have to say that it takes it to a whole new level when an entire state division of the Australian Labor Party—and, of course, I mean the great state of Western Australia's division—issues an edict stating that the Prime Minister of Australia and her federal colleagues are not to cross the border and are not to come anywhere near Western Australia in the lead-up to the state election.

I take you to the report in the Australian on 23 February by Samantha Maiden headed 'Gillard told "keep out of WA"'. On reading this report, I almost feel personally embarrassed for the Prime Minister. Samantha Maiden's report states:

We rang everyone in December and said, 'Please, don't come'—

to Western Australia. That is a Labor strategist speaking. Can you just imagine them sitting in their offices and picking up the phone to the Prime Minister and picking up the phone to Labor ministers and saying, 'Oh please, please, if you do anything, don't come near Western Australia because we are so on the nose in Western Australia that, if you do cross that border, if you are seen standing next to us, it is going to be a bad election result for Labor in any event but this will make it a total disaster'? Let's read it again because it is just so embarrassing: 'We rang everyone in December and said, "Please don't come"' to WA.

But what does Labor frontbencher Bill Shorten do? He flies into Western Australia regardless, because he could not care less what Labor strategists say. He could not care less what the Prime Minister says. Let us face it: we all know where he wants to be, and that is in the Prime Minister's position. So what have they said about good old Mr Shorten, who flew into Western Australia on a 'fly-in fly-out visit', as they have termed it? It has prompted much mirth amongst Labor MPs, who have suggested that he must have received special air clearance to actually undertake that visit. You have to wonder who gave him that special air clearance.