Richard Marles (Corio, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

In a sense I welcome the point of order, because this has everything to do with it. This is why you were not actually engaged in the business of running the country, which is what this bill is absolutely about. As I said, the Seawind seafood processing company received more than a quarter of a million dollars of government money after what the former member for Gwydir said was a rigorous assessment process. But when the current member for Richmond, the Minister for Ageing, visited the Seawind factory she discovered that the company expected employees to share workboots and to work with unsuitable, old and rusty filleting knives. I know that the minister is still getting over the experience of meeting with the Seawind trainees, who shortly afterwards experienced the company going bust—just five months after the commencement of that government-subsidised position. That appears to be what the former member for Gwydir was doing when he should have been involved in connecting our country to the international aviation system.

But what about the member for Lyne, who took over the portfolio of Transport and Regional Development and the position of Deputy Prime Minister and who was, of course, also the Leader of the National Party? Why wasn’t he busy connecting Australia to a modern international aviation system? Was he in fact more concerned with the Regional Partnerships program itself and concerned with—

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