Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Manager of Opposition Business in the House) Share this | Hansard source

It is called ‘climate change’, you fool. This government does not even acknowledge that that is the case. On these issues, the Prime Minister is running not so much a government but a farm. Without a doubt, the parrot on the farm is the Minister for the Environment and Heritage. The minister for the environment made a decision that, because one theoretical parrot every 1,000 years might be endangered, he would stop a $220 million development. But of course, once they took legal action, he surrendered. He backflipped again, which characterises this government.

The Prime Minister is a rodent according to the Liberal Party’s eminent QC, Senator George Brandis. Senator Brandis actually signed a statutory declaration that he only described the Prime Minister as a rodent, not as a lying rodent. That was his defence. So I am glad we have cleared that up. And, of course, there is one person who has been unfairly called a dog from time to time by his party colleagues. But we have seen a transformation: the dog has become a chicken. The Treasurer used to stand up and talk about roosters over and over again. People in the gallery found that very funny, and his colleagues would chortle away: ‘Ho, ho. Isn’t it funny? The Treasurer’s talking about roosters again.’ But you do not hear that anymore. I wonder why that is. Maybe it is because he knows what roosters do to chickens! Maybe that is why the Treasurer has not uttered the word ‘rooster’. He simply will not make that statement.

So on old John Howard’s farm, we have the parrot, the rodent, and the dog that became a chicken. It is time that this government moved on. This government keeps one eye on Middle Australia—or it used to—but now there is just bungling and backflipping. Today we had questions about the Epping preselection, which saw the internal contradiction within the government—once again, it is a government obsessed with itself. We will chase the Prime Minister. We are going to hound him and hunt him every day until the next election, because Australia needs bold, nation-building plans for the future, not the arrogance and incompetence that the Howard government keeps serving up to Middle Australia as it surrenders every single day all the values that make this a great country.

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