Ed Husic (Chifley, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary to the Shadow Treasurer) Share this | Hansard source

They do not want to hear this. They do not want to hear this, because it is inconvenient and it burns now. But you cannot and should not treat—

Government members interjecting—

The hypocrisy of the mover of this resolution! I did not hear you once defend Malaysia. Where were you when your own leader was trashing Malaysia? Nowhere. You were not anywhere. You were nowhere to be heard. It was an outrageous way—

Mr Simpkins interjecting—

Member for Cowan, I am on the record. When I have a disagreement with my leader over the way in which they might behave or contain themselves or say things that I believe are against the public spirit, you go and look at my record. I am happy to compare my record any day to yours, particularly in relation to this, and you know as well as anyone else in this place right now how close Western Australia is to Malaysia and how important those links are. But the fact of the matter is you all sat there mute, because you were all happy—all of you were happy—to sit there and see Malaysia trashed in that way and not stand up for it at all. It was an outrage.

Do you know what else happened as a result of this grubby political play? As a result of our inability to secure that agreement with Malaysia, 689 people died—689. And so what you did was that you trashed the relationship with Malaysia and, on top of that, you were happy to see that agreement go down, and as a result people paid for it. It was an outrage. So do not come into this place now. Do not come in here trying to say that you are all the friends of Malaysia now, because we remember and, importantly, our Malaysian friends remember exactly what you did.

Debate adjourned.

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