Zed Seselja (ACT, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Finance, Charities and Electoral Matters) Share this | Hansard source

It's not often that I give the Labor Party free advice, but I will. I sat here and listened to Senator Sterle, and we heard the ridiculous line of questioning that we had again today in the Senate, which we've heard so many times here. It is like deja vu all over again. It does feel like 2018, 2017, 2016, 2015 or 2014—going right back to the election of the coalition government in 2013. The Labor Party believe, as we saw in their question time strategy today, that if they focus on the insider yarns that they're encouraged to take up by the twitterati and other parts of the commentariat then that is a recipe for electoral success. They believe that that is the way to win the hearts and minds of the Australian people. It is this flawed strategy of the Labor Party—focusing not on the fundamentals, not on what's important to the Australian community, but on the insider nitpicking yarns—that they believe is the pathway to electoral success. Well, Senator Sterle, I can tell you and I can tell Labor senators that we've seen this over the last 6½ years and it led them to a position where they received their lowest vote in 100 years. I wonder why that would be? It used to be Sam Dastyari who came in here and played these games. I haven't been here that long, 6½ years or a little under, but to have Senator Sterle lecturing the National Party and the Liberal Party on the diversity of experience coming from the Labor Party—I'm reminded of Martin Ferguson's words when it came to Labor senators, how they would find a place for the underperforming union hacks somewhere in the upper house if they couldn't get them anywhere else. So let's not be lectured by the likes of Senator Sterle on diversity when it comes to political parties.

But let's be clear for those who are listening and those who are watching—