Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Industry and Innovation) Share this | Hansard source

():  Well, the last 15 minutes have demonstrated why the Senate should not entertain this suspension. It has demonstrated the polarisation and the hyperpartisanship of the Liberals and Nationals and One Nation and, indeed, the Greens political party. That's what it demonstrates. And it falls to the Labor Party, as the government of Australia, to—in a careful and sensible and effective way, in an orderly way—set out the policy response to this emerging crisis in the Middle East. What this debate demonstrates is that there are no answers down there, there's less than no answers there and there are no answers from the Liberals and Nationals to this set of issues.

Of course military conflict in the Middle East, the decision of the government of Iran to effectively close the Strait of Hormuz, has impacts on Australian fuel, Australian fertiliser and a series of intermediate goods, including plastics. That is the case. The government has been carefully managing these questions but, of course, it has a series of impacts that will be felt today and over the course of the year in terms of the broader economy. That is the case.

What have we seen from the Liberals and Nationals? Well, we have seen hyperventilating and hyperpartisanship when what we should have seen is the approach of an alternative party of government. They wonder why they keep getting smaller—wringing their hands internally in each of their state branches, worrying their way through these issues when what they should do is act. What they should do, if they want to be a serious party of government, is not do student politics resolutions in here. They should act and move back towards the centre of Australian politics and engage with the real issues for Australians. They have not been able to bring themselves to do that because of their own internal sense of grievance, their own incapacity to deal with the marginal position that they are currently in in Australian politics. And they have not been able to do it because they are utterly disconnected from where ordinary people are in Australia, in the centre of Australian politics.

That's the problem for them—the tactical position that they adopt. I could at least respect a tactical position that had a hope of—even though it was partisan, even if it was not in the national interest. I could at least, as a base political character myself, understand why you would adopt a hyperpartisan position that was not in the national interest. I wouldn't like it. I wouldn't do it myself, but I could understand it. But the—