Christopher Pyne (Sturt, Liberal Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

which sits uneasily with the Labor Party's pretence of egalitarianism, but, nevertheless, apparently she used to do that, bizarrely.

A government member interjecting—

Exactly, with a megaphone. But what was it that so exercised the member for Isaacs's mind that he threatened to resign if Ms Kitching was put into the Senate by the Leader of the Opposition? Obviously it was a very serious matter.

So certainly the Kitching affair goes to the judgement of the Leader of the Opposition—there is no doubt about that—and his fitness to be the Leader of the Opposition and the Prime Minister, because he overlooked the advice of people like the member for Corio, former Senator Conroy and the member for Isaacs. It also goes very much to the character of the member for Isaacs, the person who wants to again be the Attorney-General of this country. It goes to his character not only that he threatened to resign from the frontbench because of the inappropriateness of Kimberley Kitching but also that he did not resign. Why did he not resign? Why has he not resigned when he promised to resign? What kind of character has he shown to the Australian public that he made such a serious threat and then did not follow through with it? The member for Isaacs should come to the dispatch box and explain.

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