Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I do not mind starting this debate by acknowledging that normally Senator O'Neill's contributions are worth listening to.

Senator Fifield interjecting—

My apologies, Senator Fifield: they are usually worth listening to. This is, unfortunately, a very significant departure from that. On the first point, Senator O'Neill is grossly misinformed. If Senator O'Neill is going to take as her sole source of evidence information in the media, she is off to a very poor start. Secondly, and I suspect more significantly, is this point: not once in Senator O'Neill's contribution did we hear Senator O'Neill present a point of view. Does she support reform of section 46 or does she not support reform of section 46? Does she support the concerns of small businesses or does she not support the concerns of small businesses? Senator O'Neill quickly dropped to the bottom of the political barrel by not even addressing the substance of the issue.

The third point is this: Senator O'Neill wants to make it a crime for members of parliament to come to the parliament or to their party rooms and express points of view on behalf of their constituencies. If that is a crime, that speaks not of the welfare of the modern Liberal Party and the National Party; that speaks of the problem inside the modern Australian Labor Party. I think that as adults and as senators we can be mature enough to recognise one important issue, and that is that reform of section 46 is a contentious issue. It deserves to be a contentious issue because this is the first time in 20 years that this nation has had a proper document on which to gauge future reform of competition laws in this country. It is right that we should be having a debate on this issue. It is more than right that members of the Senate, members of the House of Representatives and, indeed, members of the modern Liberal Party come to this place representing the views of their local constituents.

It is interesting on another point: we do not often hear questions or debates from the Labor Party about issues important to small business. Very rarely do we hear issues of debate important to small business brought to the Senate by the Australian Labor Party. I could not help but reflect on part of Senator Abetz's answer to the question from Senator O'Neill when he recounted what the former Labor leader, Kim Beazley, had said. He had said that the Labor Party is no friend and does not pretend to be a friend of small business in this country. That is shameful!

But what we saw today in question time was a retreat, perhaps even a defeat, because Labor did not seek to spend much of its time on the China free trade agreement. One question was asked, but none of its other time was spent on the issue of the China free trade agreement. You cannot come into this place pretending to be concerned about small business but ignore the very real economic opportunities that arise from the free trade agreement with China. That leads me to think that Labor is in retreat or has been defeated in the arguments that it has been trying to put over recent weeks and months around the China free trade agreement. It is very obvious why they might be in retreat and why they might be feeling defeated. It is because Bill Shorten and the modern Labor Party in the Australian parliament have no friends in the Labor Party when it comes to its position on the China free trade agreement.

What did the Premier of South Australia, Mr Weatherill, have to say about the debate on the China free trade agreement in just the last 24 hours? He said it was time to step aside from the hysteria put about by the modern Labor Party who pretend today to be an interested in small business and in the welfare of Australian workers. Let me end with a quote from Mr Weatherill. Mr Weatherill said— (Time expired)