Jonathon Duniam (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is always a pleasure to follow my good friend and colleague Senator Polley, who fills the air with more mistruths than I can count, honestly. I give her points for trying.

What this is reminiscent of is something from 2016. You know what it was? 'Mediscare'—the ridiculous lie that was told to Australian voters right across Australia, particularly in Tasmania. Three members of the Labor Party—now in the federal caucus here—won their seats on a lie. They were trying to tell people we were going to privatise Medicare. This is the kind of form of this group of people, the Australian Labor Party, the Labor Senate team, this dynamic group of people from Tasmania that they send up here every year; that's what they do. They run these scare campaigns and try and fool poor vulnerable Tasmanians into believing their rubbish.

Senator Polley has been asking me to reel off facts. Here's a fact: Senator Polley couldn't defend Ms White, the opposition leader in Tasmania, once. She didn't talk up her credentials once. She stood there talking about the Premier of Tasmania, Will Hodgman—an excellent Premier, I might add. I will come to those facts that Senator Polley is going to miss out on again as she leaves the chamber again, runs from this debate, to talk about the frontline services that we have restored in Tasmania.