Nicola Roxon (Gellibrand, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Health and Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

I thank the member for Capricornia for her question. People on this side of the House will be delighted to know—in fact, all will be aware of this because of being in the chamber last night voting for it—the alcopops measure has now passed the House. Although, I am disappointed to say that it was despite the announcement that was rather gracelessly executed by the member for Dickson that the Liberal Party was going to support the measure. I think he indicated that the Leader of the Opposition had finally had his way over the member for Dickson and the rest of the shadow cabinet. He declared that support would be provided by the Liberal Party for this measure. Actually, when it came to it, there were no Liberal members in the chamber voting for this measure. In fact, there were four members of the coalition parties here voting against the measure.

I have to admit to feeling slightly sorry—and probably not for the reasons that other people in the country might be feeling sorry—for the Leader of the Opposition, who was finally able to say that he saw the merit of our arguments for the alcopops and it was a matter worthy of supporting. He said, ‘Come on troops, we’re going to vote for it,’ and he turned around and suddenly there was nobody standing there behind him. For 12 months they have been arguing against this measure. It seems to me that the Liberal Party are fine if they are against something. But if you want them to support something, they split in all directions. We have the member for O’Connor, the member for Hume and the member for Gippsland who, after all the love that was shown to him by the distilling industry during his by-election, obviously could not bring himself to vote against the measure. They actually ran an advertising campaign for him during his by-election.

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