Adam Bandt (Melbourne, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

It seems that the government is finally getting the message. When you attack the egalitarian heart that beats in this country, when you say, 'We're going to make you pay hundreds of thousands of dollars just to go to university' or 'We're going to charge you more if you're poor to go and see the doctor,' people will fight back and you will pay for it. When President Obama gets up and says that leaders who treat climate change without the seriousness that it deserves and instead treat it like a joke, whether the boom mike is operating at the time or not, do not deserve to be called leaders.

Today they have finally got the message, and I am pleased that it is the member for Wentworth who is sticking his hand up, because he would certainly be a better alternative than the one we have got at the moment as our Prime Minister. But my worry is this: he will sell his soul to the hard right, climate-denying, inequality-loving rump in his party in order to get the job.

There is one lesson that this government seems to be incapable of learning—and I wonder whether the member for Wentworth will be able to learn it—that is, the problem is not the salesperson; the problem is what you are trying to sell. People around this country will be watching you and watching this party like a hawk. People will be prepared to give the new leadership, should there be one of this country, a chance and the benefit of the doubt. But, if you insist on ripping at the heart of egalitarian Australia, you will suffer the same fate.

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