Greg Combet (Charlton, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Climate Change and Energy Efficiency) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you to the member for Parramatta for the question once more. As a member representing a lot of coal workers I have taken a keen interest in the resources sector and the coal industry in particular. Something that has always fascinated me is the prediction by the Leader of the Opposition that, from Sunday, the coal industry will die. It is doomed. Everyone is gone. It is all over, gone, faster than the run out of the House of Representatives the other week—all gone.

But it has been puzzling because, after the Leader of the Opposition had made this forecast, a prominent Liberal with years of government service took on the role as chairman of a coalmining company. Why would you head up a coalmining company after the leader of your own party has predicted that it would be destroyed?

A government member: Who would that be?

It was none other than now Senator Arthur Sinodinos—New South Wales Liberal heavyweight, New South Wales Liberal Party finance director and state president, John Howard's right-hand man and the opposition's economics brains trust.

Opposition members interjecting—

Well, you would not credit it to you mob, would you? Fair dinkum! Arthur Sinodinos knew what was going on and he knew that the Leader of the Opposition's claims were a total fraud.

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