Michael McCormack (Riverina, National Party, Assistant Minister to the Deputy Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

Indeed, a Nat. I refer to Louis Dreyfus, a grain merchant and part-owner of Newcastle Agri Terminal or NAT, who supplied the wheat for the largest grain train ever in Australia. It is a 1.3-kilometre long grain train. Louis Dreyfus supplied that wheat, sourced from Moree and Narrabri, with the mother lode being consolidated at Narrabri before being hauled into port by Southern Shorthaul Rail’s locomotives. That came from the electorate of Parkes. I talk about Mr Dreyfus and I talk about NAT because that speaks to the integrity of our government. Our government is delivering integrity—integrity in infrastructure and integrity in what we do.

Labor is looking for anything at all to discuss, other than policies, because Labor has no policies. Labor came to the parliament and we heard the member for Maribyrnong, the Leader of the Opposition, talk about the year of big ideas. Those opposite have hardly had a single idea. In fact, it could be Labor's year of no ideas or at least Labor's year of no good ideas. The Liberal-Nationals government have many, many good ideas, including investing in rail infrastructure and investing in agriculture, such that we are getting a grain to port train to help Mr Dreyfus's company, NAT. What a good acronym! I could not think of one that would be any better myself. Labor is looking for a distraction, and any distraction will do. It is reverting to its usual negativity, which is its modus operandi—anything to distract from 'Mr 15 per cent' and anything to distract from their poor performance in the opinion polls.

I am not a big believer in opinion polls. I believe that there is one opinion poll that should be followed and that is the ballot box. When you have an opposition leader whose rating as preferred Prime Minister is down to 15 per cent, it does not bother me. As I said, I do not give too much countenance to opinion polls, but it is worrying those opposite big-time. It is really disturbing them. If anybody is being thought about over the summer period, it will be the member for Maribyrnong. He will be sweating nervously not just because of the Boxing Day test and how Australia will go; he will be very, very nervous about his position, because he has many members breathing down his neck.

The coalition government will not bogged down in Labor's rather petty political games, and it is all rather pathetic. We are delivering on all fronts: from the Federation, the taxation and the agricultural white papers to record investments—$50 billion—in infrastructure, including the sorts of rail infrastructure that I talked about earlier. We are delivering. We are building our nation. We are harnessing creativity. We are fostering innovation. We are investing in our future, in our children's future and in our grandchildren's future. We are facilitating economic transition. We are seizing the day. We hear the Prime Minister talk about the fact that there has never been a more exciting time to be an Australian. I would add to that and say that there has never been a more exciting time to be a regional Australian. We are securing our country.

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