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

And there we have it again. They are so angry with the outcome of the election that they have decided to oppose everything. They are totally divided, as we have seen on full public display this week.

The member for Wentworth went out there and made statements last night on Lateline that a decent Leader of the Opposition should have made when he slapped down the comments of the shadow parliamentary secretary assisting the Leader of the Opposition. When he did that, he did that out of desperation. Have you noticed how many questions the member for Wentworth has had about the National Broadband Network or anything else? Indeed, they sling him the Thursday MPI debate out of desperation so that he can make a single contribution to this House. Everything that they do is not determined by the Australian national interest; it is determined by their own internal political machinations. That is what we have seen this week with the Leader of the Opposition, who is opposed by the member for Wentworth, the mover of this MPI, and opposed by his own shadow Treasurer. The Deputy Leader of the Opposition has been busy backgrounding newspapers about shadow cabinet discussions. The shadow finance minister wants the job of the shadow Treasurer who wants the job of the Leader of the Opposition who wants a job of the government.

The frustration is there. The young guns at the back there who yell so loudly, and come up to you in the corridors—you can understand the frustration. You can understand the frustration with people like the member for Mackellar and the member for Menzies occupying the front bench, because the Leader of the Opposition says that any day now the government might fall over.

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