Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

In order to describe what the government is doing, it is important to understand the dimension of the problem, and the problem has only become so acute because of 12 years of inaction, 12 years of being out to lunch on dealing with skills in this country. It is of no surprise to me that the member for Canning defends such conduct, defends everybody’s right to be out to lunch, with quotes like:

He’s—

the member for Mayo is—

exercising his right to lunch … with the time difference between Adelaide his ruminations might be a little bit out of clock.

Mr Speaker, I can tell you what is out of clock here. What is out of clock here is the out-of-touch, out-to-lunch Liberal Party. At least the member for Higgins comes to question time, even if he looks at seek.com.au for the entire duration!

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