Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

I notice the member for Lyne having a good chuckle at the idea that the National Party are the party of regional Australia and that they are moving forward in Macquarie Street and in Canberra. The Leader of the National Party has become the Comical Ali of the Parliament. Remember Comical Ali as the US troops came into Baghdad? He said, ‘It’s okay, nothing’s happening. It’s okay, we’re going well.’ Comical Ali had this to say about the Americans, ‘We have destroyed their shovels. We have driven them back.’ Well those opposite want to destroy the shovels of the government, those nation-building shovels that are being utilised throughout the country to build roads, to build rail and to build ports. Those opposite, in spite of their best efforts to stop the nation-building agenda of this government, will not succeed.

I must say that the Leader of the National Party perhaps listened to the leader of the coalition who said, on 20 May when he was in Adelaide, about the government’s nation-building agenda and I quote:

… everything will have to be reviewed. There’s no question about that.

What we see is those opposite drawing into question the nation-building agenda that the government has. The government will not be deterred. It will continue to support programs which support jobs today and which build the infrastructure that Australia needs for tomorrow.

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