Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

exactly the kind of negative contributions you would expect from an opposition that has got no policies or plans for the nation's future. The Leader of the Opposition day after day believes that insults are substitutes for ideas. You cannot say that you want to be Prime Minister of this country and not offer one idea about the nation's future. Here we are in this parliament meeting a few days before two significant national reforms start: carbon pricing to transform us to a clean energy future and the minerals resource rent tax to share the benefits of the boom around the country. These are two transforming national reforms, just like the major national reforms of the past, like floating the dollar, like reducing tariff walls, like universal superannuation—transforming reforms—and all the Leader of the Opposition can offer in his case as to why the standing orders should suspended is a series of insults.

Has the Leader of the Opposition ever walked into this place and up to that dispatch box and said, 'Let's suspend standing orders because I've got an idea about how to make sure our nation has a better and more prosperous future'? Have you ever heard the Leader of the Opposition do that: walk in here and offer an idea? An idea about jobs? An idea about growing the national economy? An idea about improving our healthcare system? An idea about improving our schools? No, because he believes that in his relentless negativity he can hoodwink the Australian people. He has never offered one idea.

Standing orders should not be suspended to enable the Leader of the Opposition to further expose himself for his desperate and destructive negativity. The Leader of the Opposition is as worked up as he is today, as full of insults, because he can see 1 July looming. He can see Sunday looming. And he knows that from 1 July on he will be held to account for every negative reckless campaign claim he has made. He will be exposed to the Australian people when the coal industry continues to function and his backbench continue to buy shares in coalmining companies. He will be exposed when price rises—

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