Bruce Billson (Dunkley, Liberal Party, Minister for Small Business) Share this | Hansard source

We learnt nothing about Labor from the contribution from the Leader of the Opposition. He was masquerading. He was supposed to be talking about economic stability and the plan for employment and economic growth. We heard absolutely nothing—not a word—from Labor. This is the two years of living dangerously for Bill Shorten. In that time he has had to placate the unions. He has had to keep the Labor crowd together. He has had to go further to the left to make sure his popularity was not I suppose displaced by the popularity of Mr Albanese. He knew he was not the popular choice so he has had to do the bidding of the union movement to keep his grasp on power.

We heard the Leader of the Opposition, a fully owned subsidiary of the union movement. He was to talk about a plan for the future and yet we managed to get absolutely nothing. He talked about wasted years. The wasted years were clearly the wasted years of Labor. They have talked about being constructive but have not managed to do it. They have moved further to the left, further from the sensible centre of Australian politics. They have sought to hide from their record of failure, lack of commitment and their complete absence of a plan when they were in office. They talk about what everyone else should be doing.

Even today when the 29th Prime Minister of Australia had his first question time what did we get from Labor? We often look to the member for Blaxland. Some people have him in high regard—I have him in high regard. He ended up wanting to have a conversation about whether the new Prime Minister has personally poleaxed somebody. What does that add? How does that help in any way whatsoever to get more opportunities for jobs in our economy and stronger growth and to build resilience and agility in our nation? It does not help at all, but it tells you all you need to know about modern Labor. They are not interested in policy issues. They are not interested in turning their mind to the challenges that we face as a nation. They are not interested in crafting policies that enable us to be the best we possibly can be as an economy and as a people. No, we get a question about someone being poleaxed. That says all you need to know. For all of their talk Labor has no credibility.

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