Sophie Mirabella (Indi, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Where does one begin? I do have some sympathy for the member for Wills. He obviously drew the short straw today. He ended with some criticism of the printing entitlement. Let me remind him and his Labor colleagues that under the last Labor government there was an unlimited allowance, but they quite conveniently forget that. Methinks this smells a little of the hypocritical meat pie that he must have had for lunch.

Let us remember one of the Labor members who lost his seat—the former member for Paterson—who spent over $400,000 of his printing entitlement. The member for Wills also said that the current entitlement was too high. Did he tell the member for Richmond, a Labor member, that she spent too much money when she spent $124,968 of her printing entitlement? Why didn’t the member for Wills criticise the member for Richmond? In his opinion she obviously did not need to spend that much money. Let us remember that the Labor Party had an unlimited amount and it was this government that actually brought in limits.

We heard nothing from the opposition about the obvious Labor hypocrisy when in August 2003 Labor joined with the Democrats and Greens to disallow certain entitlements. They forgot to mention that there were some entitlements that were designed specifically to help the Labor Party and the minor parties, like new charter transport arrangements and more computers, mobile phones and business travel for their staff. We did not hear anything about that.

Then again, as I said, I do empathise with the member for Wills. He was stuck with the pathetic, puerile and empty matter of public importance that the member for Grayndler got up today.

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