Arch Bevis (Brisbane, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I apologise, and of course I should not have said ‘you’, Mr Deputy Speaker, because I know that would be a gross misrepresentation of your view. I was clearly referring to the members of the opposition. I am happily corrected on that. Yet again we have seen, as we have seen on a daily basis, an opposition that cannot hold to a thought for more than 24 hours. It has been the case here again. Someone asked today, ‘What are we going to talk about today in the MPI?’ It is a great challenge for the tactics committee, so they decided to talk about unemployment—even though they have shown no interest in it whatsoever, even though the government has acted decisively, in a very significant way, with a $10.4 billion stimulus package, along with support for the vehicle industry, along with a number of other packages that time may or may not permit me to talk about, but some of which I know were touched on by the minister. In spite of that, the paucity of knowledge and tactics in the opposition leads them to raise this as an issue, once again demonstrating that 24 hours is a long time for the concentration span of those opposite.

But who better to second this from the other side than the member for Fisher? When it comes to changing positions, I think he holds the record in this place. This is the person who came into this parliament as a National Party member, then changed to become a Liberal Party member, and then after the last election listed himself on the members’ register as a Liberal-National Party member before finding out that he was the only one who did that. I thought that was a career move to make him the leader of a political party. It turns out I did him a disservice. He was not endeavouring to become the leader of a political party; he just made a mistake, so now he is a Liberal again. So who better to be involved in a flip-flop performance than the member for Fisher?

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