Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education, Apprenticeships and Training) Share this | Hansard source

I am shocked that calling somebody self-indulgent and self-regarding is unparliamentary. But, as we are in the dying days of this dishonourable, horrible, low parliament, which sank to a new low last night when the Prime Minister was put to the political sword without explanation, I withdraw for the good of the House.

What we have seen in the last 24 hours is the most extraordinary display of delusion from a new Prime Minister. He says that there cannot be any negative politics—no negative politics. This is the man who sent out an email today saying:

Negative destructive personal politics has done much to bring dishonour to our parliament …

Well, someone needs to tell the member for Hunter, or the member for Reid, or the member for Barton, or the member for McMahon, or Chifley, or Corangamite—all of these members that have been sent out like a pack of wolves, for three years and three days, to tear down the member for Lalor down. She was never given a chance. I admire one thing about the member for Lalor: she was tough. But even she could not withstand the dogs of war that the new Prime Minister sent out against her three years and three days ago. Who can forget his teary farewell in the Prime Minister's courtyard? Butter would not melt in his mouth. He was shocked and amazed that he had been removed from the prime ministership. Today he is back, smug and self-regarding as ever and wanting everybody to put out of their minds, like a bad dream, the last three years and three days.

I felt sorry for the former Prime Minister today. I even smiled at her in the chamber in the dying days of this parliament. I said, 'What went wrong?' because, listening to the new Prime Minister, you would think she had led a great government that had made terrific achievements—forgetting all the terrible disasters of the last three years and offering no explanation as to why this apparently great prime minister, who led a great government, had to be torn down by the pack of wolves that he sent out to relentlessly and negatively campaign against her.

All of the headlines in the newspapers and all the leaking of polling that was done to destroy the former Prime Minister was orchestrated by Kevin Rudd and his supporters. Senator Carr from the Senate—Senator Kim Carr, I should say, rather than Senator Bob Carr—was one of the henchmen who was used to destroy Prime Minister Gillard. But Mr Rudd wants us all to forget these three years of relentlessly, negatively, personally denigrating and destroying the Prime Minister. All the terrible stories that were leaked to the tabloid press about the Prime Minister's partner—none of them could have been known by the opposition. They were all known by members of her caucus—

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