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

We should not suspend standing orders because we should not give in to the indulgence of those opposite. It is not our fault that they do not sit on this side of the chamber. It is not our fault that every day they move a suspension of standing orders for the sole purpose that, during the division, they can sit on the government benches for just a few minutes. That is the only possible explanation. What we see from those opposite is that they are not conservatives; they are wreckers; they are extremists; they are reactionaries; and they are desperate as it comes to July 1.

As it comes to July 1 those opposite know that all of their fear campaigns that Whyalla will disappear off the map, and all the other fears—and we heard it again in the suspension motion. The Leader of the Opposition said today: 'We will see the death of the coal industry'—at a time when we know there is half a trillion dollars of investment in the resources sector pipeline.

We should not suspend standing orders because I predict I might have got the next question. If I did, I might have been asked about the Regional Infrastructure Fund and what people have to say about that. Those on this side of the House have supported the minerals resource rent tax because we support the support for superannuation and the support for regional infrastructure. This is what the Leader of the National Party had to say a year ago:

I share the disappointment about how few mining companies contribute to the areas they invade and how little state governments return of the massive royalty incomes they receive to the communities.

That is what he had to say. I thought that might have been an aberration—it might have just been a mistake—because the Nats do make mistakes, but just this month in the Mudgee Guardian he said that mining companies:

… could not expect to take away a region’s resources without leaving something for the community.

That is what he had to say, and then he went on to say:

… mines had a responsibility to contribute to the specific infrastructure provided to meet their needs.

When they are out there in their communities, they say, 'We want regional infrastructure; we need regional infrastructure; we should do something about it.' It is just like when they go around and say they have the exactly same target that we do on climate change; the difference is this: we are using a market to get there by introducing an emissions trading system with a fixed price. Those opposite want to get there the same way, but not only are they climate sceptics; they are market sceptics as well. They want to do it through the old Soviet command style economy of this Leader of the Opposition.

The fact is that they say no to everything in this parliament, except yes to Work Choices, yes to clawing back tax cuts and pension rises, yes to ripping the NBN out of the ground, yes to taking billions away from public hospitals and yes to slashing the education budget. But we know they want to avoid discussion. We know that the Leader of the Opposition has been missing a bit on the last couple of weekends—he has been doing no doorstops.

See this speech in context