Brendan O'Connor (Gorton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Employment Participation) Share this | Hansard source

You are more obsessed by the member for Higgins than I am, Member for Stirling! I think it is quite interesting that the member for Higgins has more influence over the outcomes of the Liberal Party than the Leader of the Opposition. That is the reality. We know that the opposition is a rabble at the moment. We have not seen such a rabble for such a long time.

As I said before, what the opposition have to understand is that real leadership is not having two leaders. The fact is that they have to start thinking about the policies, they have to start thinking about what mandate this government has in the area of industrial relations and they also have to start respecting that the government is taking action swiftly to ensure that it protects Australian workers. We know they wanted to blame the Deputy Leader of the Opposition. She got sacked. They brought back the member for North Sydney as shadow Treasurer. They had sacked the first minister for Work Choices and brought the member for North Sydney into that role. The fact is that Hockey might be the jockey but it is still the same old horse. The opposition are a rabble. They do not have one position on anything. The member for Stirling spent 15 minutes reading an essay to the parliament, and in everything he said in relation to employment there was not one mention of what the opposition would do to help Australian workers.

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