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

I will, Mr Speaker. The Leader of the Opposition has shown in the last 48 hours, if there was any doubt, that he is unfit for high public office—it is as simple as that. He himself said:

Disrupting the House is not a sign of a disciplined opposition; disrupting the House is a sign of a desperate opposition.

He then said:

What we have seen from members opposite consistently in the course of this year but particularly over the last few weeks is consistent, deliberate, planned and premeditated conduct to disrupt this House.

Does anyone think—does any single Australian who watches question time think—that this Leader of the Opposition does not have a premeditated strategy to trash the parliamentary processes? This person is not a conservative; he is a reactionary who has no respect for parliamentary institutions and no respect for due process as it occurs in this place. What he has respect for is the front page of newspapers. We see it day after day. Last week, we saw the Leader of the Opposition out there with an apparent new victim, Geoff Didier. He forgot to disclose that Mr Didier was a former, failed Liberal Party candidate.

But it gets better. Yesterday on the front page of the Australian we saw jeweller Peter Dracakis, with his assistant, in his store at Warringah Mall, backing up in this case not his opposition to climate change but his love of Work Choices. There are two things the Leader of the Opposition is passionate about: hating climate change and loving Work Choices. Again, the fact is that when you look into it—it does not take much—you find that Mr Dracakis and his father do own the family jewellery store that was featured in the article through their family company, Polmind Pty Ltd but you also find that Mr Dracakis is the president and financial controller of the Warringah Club—the personal fund-raising group of the Leader of the Opposition. That is who is out there arguing for Work Choices.

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