Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You are, of course, a divided government that is not able to reconcile your own internal problems, and so what you have to do is seek to project onto the Labor Party these divisions, because your real claim, of course, is to try to undermine the trade union movement, so you can't deal with those great issues that are, in fact, affecting this country.

So what are we about? We're about trying to humiliate senior public servants. We're about trying to get the Reserve Bank governor in a position of ultimate humiliation where the independence of the Reserve Bank is brought into question. We're about trying to present a position to this country none of which was presented to the electorate. None of these matters came up through the election campaign. This was not the proposition you put to the Australian people. You, in fact, had nothing to say on the sorts of matters that you're presenting to this parliament, you allege, this week. These, of course, are devices you have sought to bring on because you've got nothing to say about the future of this country. The agenda that you claim to represent now is, of course, cobbled together in a desperate attempt to actually try to get through this parliamentary session, and that's why you've brought on this address-in-reply.

I anticipated that I would be speaking on Thursday. I'm more than happy to go whenever required, because I'm sure you'll deeply regret whatever I've got to say. The fact remains you have brought this on now because you have nothing to say to the Australian people about the future of this country. (Time expired)