Nick Champion (Wakefield, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Gunna shearer! Of course, it has confused those in the fourth estate too. Mr Deputy Speaker, imagine you were a journalist. You would be scratching your head, because they had all these demands, this Orwellian bravado and this beating the chest. We always get that out of the Prime Minister. That there is one in every town. He is a good talker and you think, 'Oh well, you know, I guess he must be right. He's saying it with such forcefulness. He's so adamant; he must be right.' And then you find out he is wrong, and you think, 'Oh right. I wonder how that's going to go?' Then the next time he is so adamant again, and he is wrong. Sooner or later you work out that a man's word is his bond and that you have to be careful with words.

Those in the fourth estate, those up in the gallery, know. We know what Phil Coorey thinks. He has an article online, 'Government declines Labor offer to pass small biz tax package'. That is a headline. That is a headline you would not have expected to see. You would have thought that those opposite, after all the quotes, the hoo-ha, the bravado and the beating of the chest—'We're gunna to do this, we're gunna to do that,' all those 'gunnas'—would have taken up the offer of bipartisanship. You would have thought they would take up the offer for certainty. You would have thought they would have had this bill through this House. And if ever a guillotine should apply, it should apply on these measures because there is broad agreement on them. There is no need for the drones from the backbench to drone on for a day and night. We should pass this bill and have no more Orwellian division and no more of this 'Gunna do this and gunna do that'. We should have no more delay. Let's have certainty, let's have economic growth and let's back small business in this country.

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