Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Knocking off a Prime Minister takes a bit of effort. It is hard work. There are those months of meetings in dark corners and those whispering phone conversations all done under the cloak of darkness. It is a really tough thing to do and it takes quite a bit of effort. You have to really want the job if you are going to knock off the Prime Minister to get it. Now that it is done, people are asking themselves: what the hell was the point of that? What was the point?

For a while, it looked like things would be different—yes. The tone of the debate changed. We saw some of the rhetoric soften. We saw some of those extreme fringe policies that Tony Abbott took to the Australian people abandoned in those first few months, and it was like a breath of fresh air. The country was relieved that Tony Abbott was gone. Now here we are, just a little more than a year after Malcolm Turnbull decided he wanted Tony Abbott's job, and what we have seen is the return of the Tony Abbott agenda.