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

The Leader of the Opposition's followers have morphed into a group of vuvuzelas. They have been listening to him for so long that they have got it right: 'No, no, no, no.' They have got it right, because that is what those opposite are about. You had an extraordinary perform­ance today, and now half of question times have been suspended by the opposition so that they can engage in the ego trip of the Leader of the Opposition—so that he can stand up for 10 minutes and do his ranting and raving and his relentless negativity. They swap around a bit. Sometimes it is the Deputy Leader of the Opposition, sometimes it is the shadow Treasurer and sometimes it is the Manager of Opposition Business. But you know one thing: it will never be the member for Wentworth, who can never even get a question in this place. If we did not suspend standing orders so often, maybe he would get a question—which is why we should not suspend standing orders.

They moved this suspension on the basis that it is urgent. I ask you to take yourself back a little bit over 24 hours ago to when you woke up on Monday morning and you read the paper. It was so urgent he was going to do it at 10 am, but of course nothing happened yesterday. No-one was here at 10 am and nothing happened throughout the day. Of course, nothing has happened today either in the House of Representatives or in the Senate. Nothing has happened except that his stunt has been rejected as a stunt. And why has it been rejected as a stunt? Because so relentless is the Leader of the Opposition's negativity that when he went on the radio yesterday to sell the idea that it is vital that we give Australians a say and he was asked a simple question—question 1: 'What if they come back and they don't agree with you? Will you change your position?'—he said no. He said 'No, no, no, no' because he cannot help himself. What a farce.

You can imagine them workshopping it yesterday morning. You can imagine them in the tactics room. There they were: 'Well, Tone, it's gone well. We got the front page of the Telegraph. They look pretty stupid. We got the front page of the Herald Sun and they look stupid, and we got the Advertiser and they look stupid.' They all ran that this was going to happen. Imagine the workshop: 'Let's workshop some questions; let's do a little Q&A. First question: will you agree to be bound by the plebiscite? Answer: no.' You are a joke. You do not deserve to be the alternative Prime Minister of this country.

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