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

I am addressing the matter of timing because of course the timing is contingent on the bill going through the parliament. Whether or not quick passage of this bill is going to be facilitated depends in part on the position of the opposition. It is a material fact to the question of timing.

Then we got a different position from the opposition—hence the confusion and hence the risk to timing—on the weekend, when the Deputy Leader of the Opposition appeared on national television and said that the opposition did not support but did not oppose the government’s bill. Is this a riddle that we are supposed to puzzle out? What is the meaning of this nonsense? By the standard of these contributions, the next thing that we will hear from the opposition—and I am surprised that we did not hear it today on climate change—is them wandering out telling age-old riddles like, ‘If a tree falls down in a forest and no-one’s there does it make a sound?’ That will be the next quality contribution.

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