Barnaby Joyce (New England, National Party, Leader of the Nationals) Share this | Hansard source

the Labor Party, the same Labor Party that did nothing when milk prices went down to 27c a litre in Victoria. All the Labor Party can do is come up with stunts. They are not a government, they are not an opposition; they are a circus, a circus that believes in stunts, stunts that stand in proxy for even a vague semblance of what a government might be.

I am happy to stay here for as long as it takes to make sure that people clearly understand that those on the other side, those in the opposition, are not worthy of the Treasury benches. They have not come up with one idea, in the hundred ideas they had in the last election, for a positive agenda—not one for the people on the land. In fact, the closest they got was to increase the regulation around tree clearing to put a further caveat on people who live on the land. All they want to deliver to people on the land is nothing, or further regulation to make their life more difficult.

Mr Speaker, it is an interesting day when we are talking about probity, when we are talking about how things could be done better. This is the same week we have heard of Senator Sam Dastyari receiving more than $1,600 from an organisation which has close ties to the Chinese government, and those opposite just brush it off; they do not worry about it. But they do not have the ticker to stand up and make a statement and do something about it.

You would think that that Leader of the Opposition would have the capacity when asked of him to show real leadership, to make a statement, to show the Australian people the sort of person he would be, or he wants to be. He does not have the ticker to stand up to Sam Dastyari. It is obvious that the faceless men have more power than the Leader of the Opposition.

If people want to stay late tonight and hear something then the Australian people should hear this: Sam Dastyari received more than $1,600 from an organisation closely associated with the Chinese government and then had the temerity to make statements about the key arguments around our nation's defence policy, which the Labor Party agree with but he that wishes to change.

Why would he wish to change it? Would it have anything to do with his association that was backed up by a payment of $1,600? In fact, not only that. He said he would donate it to a charity. Even that charity had the decency to see that that money was tainted and handed it back. That charity has more ticker than the Leader of the Opposition, who intends to do nothing about this. He now has to show some ticker. He now has to do something about this. He now has to show his mettle. Has this man any mettle? That is the question that everybody is asking here tonight.

They are not going to be asking about your charade; they are going to be asking about your ticker. Do you have anything? Is there anything inside there? Is there anything inside that shows you have the steel to deal with Senator Sam Dastyari, or is he more powerful than you? Is that the reality? Is he more powerful than you? Are you actually scared of him? Does he actually run it? Is the Labor Party still run by Sussex Street and you are merely the puppet, sitting there just waiting?

That is what the Australian people want to hear about tonight, and we are happy to talk about it. We are going to make sure that if we have to stay here till midnight this will be the question that we will be asking people: why is it that the Labor Party at their first opportunity, after so much rhetoric over members of the government and with issues when we had to stand people down, had nothing, nothing to show for it. It was amazing. It was the sound of silence. Every time we mentioned Senator Sam Dastyari from New South Wales, there was silence on the Labor Party side, absolute silence; the Captain Thunderbolt of politics.

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