Darren Chester (Gippsland, National Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Roads and Regional Transport) Share this | Hansard source

Here we go! The member for McEwen says most of his are intelligent. So now the member for McEwen is insulting every Gippslander.

You are a genius, Mensa; you are a genius! Make my job easier, will you! Okay, the people from Gippsland are not as smart people as the people from McEwen. Well done, genius! Good on you, Mensa! That will run well in the election campaign: the member for McEwen says the people in Gippsland are not very smart at all.

Well, the people in Gippsland are smart enough to reject the Labor Party. In the by-election in 2008, the people in Gippsland had the choice of voting for the great Kevin Rudd, the juggernaut at the peak of his powers, but, in a by-election, what did they do to Kevin? They took six per cent off him. At the first chance when he went to an election, they took six per cent off him. And did Kevin front up to another by-election? No, Kevin would not go to another by-election after that. He ran off and hid, and clung to power for as long as he possibly could until Julia got him.

As I was saying, the problem for the member for McEwen—and the problem for the Prime Minister—is that no-one actually believes a word the Prime Minister says. The message that I am getting from the people in Gippsland—and I am sure the member for McEwen is getting the same message—is that they cannot wait to get rid of her. They simply cannot wait to get rid of this Prime Minister. The caucus could do Australians a great favour—they could get rid of this Prime Minister. They have done it once. They could do it twice. The message we get consistently in our electorates is: 'Get rid of her. Why prolong the agony?'

The very nature of this carbon tax and of the matter of public importance that is before us today is—

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