Susan McDonald (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

For somebody who is so outraged about giving a platform to this man, a man who—thanks very much to Labor's determination to give him a platform—I had to Google, I appreciate enormously that Senator O'Neill has taken the trouble to repeat his comments at least three times this afternoon. If this person did not have a platform before, Labor has done his job for him. It is extraordinary. I think that the Senate has now descended into the same sort of language that she declared to abhor.

I think it is frankly bizarre that this afternoon, once again, the opposition has raised the same issues that we have heard them go on about this week and that the relevant ministers have answered. I understand that members of the opposition might be confused and that they do really believe that these are the issues that are so burningly important to the mums and dads across Australia and even union members across Australia. It would be terrific if they took the same level of interest in the issues facing real people and, importantly, farmers right across Australia. But we know that Labor is not interested in real issues for real people. We know that because, in my home state of Queensland, not only has the Labor government passed unpractical regulations and removed the ability for landholders to manage their land but, on 18 June this year, the Queensland Labor government's trigger maps were labelled a joke after the maps showed Suncorp Stadium, in the middle of Brisbane—and I'm sure the New South Wales members here would be very familiar with Suncorp Stadium—as a high-risk area where endangered or vulnerable plants were present or likely to be present. It seems extraordinary that the turfed area of 'The Cauldron', that highly sacred place for Queenslanders, would have turned up as a high-risk vegetation management area. But we know that Labor are not interested in the real issues for real people, particularly real farmers. In fact, they are doing their very best by banding together with the Greens to ensure that there are no farmers and no food is grown in Australia at all.

They have no understanding or interest in the issues that are important to regional Australia, to the sort of professionalism and innovation that's happening out in the real world, where people have real issues and a real agenda. Unfortunately, Labor has no agenda and, instead, has spent this week, and this question time, again giving a platform to—I'm going to have to look the person up again, because this person had no profile, had no recognition at all in Australia until Senator O'Neill managed to put his comments into Hansard three times this afternoon.

Who can forget the debacle of the recent federal election where the Labor Party took policies to the Australian people, policies that the Australian people told Labor, in no uncertain terms, were not relevant or useful to them. Australia is a wonderful country but, if you listened to Labor, you would think we are quite broken. I can tell you we are not a broken country at all. I can only congratulate the members of the Labor Party for taking what they deem as hate speech and giving it a very high profile. It is unfortunate.