Kevin Rudd (Griffith, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs and Trade and International Security) Share this | Hansard source

The Federal President of the National Party says you are dead. The Queensland President of the National Party says you are dead. The Queensland Leader of the National Party says you are dead. John Bjelke-Petersen, son of Joh, says you are dead. Even Senator Julian McGauran said you were dead some time ago. And who would have thought that Julian McGauran would be a market leader in anything?

That leaves us with the Deputy Prime Minister himself protesting to the parliament at large, to the country at large and to his party at large that this is a mere flesh wound. In fact, this is a dead parrot. This parrot is completely dead. This party is a dead parrot. But today it was like a voice channelling from the past. In answer to a question from the Leader of the Opposition, what was the initial response from the Deputy Prime Minister? ‘Don’t you worry about that.’ I hear the voice of distant years. It was Joh Bjelke-Petersen down the time tunnel of politics and into the House of Representatives—a place to which he wished to come once, did he not?—wreaking parallel havoc on this mob opposite. Well, the ghost of Joh is back in a different form, channelling through the Deputy Prime Minister today—‘Don’t you worry about that.’ I have to say, though, Deputy Prime Minister, most of your colleagues are very much worried about that. Peter Beattie got it right: Joh Bjelke-Petersen today would be rolling in his grave at the thought of the once great, proud Australian Country Party turning into what we have seen today—a subset of a minor branch of something now called the New Liberals in Queensland.

All students of political history have a bit of an interest in this, and I have a bit of an interest in it too. I make the confession here, in the parliament, that my father was a member of the Country Party.

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