Raff Ciccone (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

That's right, Senator Chisholm—the coalition.

The Australian people decided: 'We want a change of government. We're going to voting for an Albanese Labor government, which will invest in health, education and jobs and make sure our sovereign capability gets back up to scratch.' Now that the Australian people have made that choice, those opposite come in here, every single day that we sit, and lecture us. They lecture the government while we try to clear up their mess, and they try to pretend that their mess never existed. They're embarrassed about the problems they created. They don't want to take ownership of it.

It is the case that we were here till very late this morning—4.15 to be precise—listening to contributions by those opposite on a number of bills that we had before this parliament. A tip for those opposite, particularly the Nationals and Liberal colleagues: being in opposition is hard; I understand that. It is always hard being on the losing side. I get that. I was there for three years, but I learnt a lot. By learning a lot, I'm now on this side of the chamber, with my lovely colleagues, implementing reforms and making changes in the interests of working people.

As a senator, I value working with everyone across the chamber, as you would all know. I think it's actually much healthier for democracies, for parliaments, for chambers like this Senate, when we are actually all working together in the national interest, rather than the sort of short-term political point scoring that we see from those opposite. But the coalition makes it very, very difficult.

I suspect that when they get up every morning they go to their tactics and say: 'Right; how are we going to say no to Labor's policy reforms? How are we going to say no to making the lives of working people better?' Their tactics must be fascinating, because they're having to deal with not only those in the sensible centre but also those on the fringes who are constantly against the interests of working people. When this government comes into this place and has an approach, how do we work with senators? I hate to say it to those opposite, but the only common sense we're getting at the moment is from the crossbench, who are willing to sit down and work with the government to tackle the cost-of-living issues, to tackle investments in manufacturing and also to invest in the very people that elected us to this great place.