Stephen Jones (Whitlam, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Regional Services, Territories and Local Government) Share this | Hansard source

In less than 72 hours, the Prime Minister will call an election and Australians are going to be relieved, I can tell you. After five years of underperformance, chaos and division, the Australian people will get the opportunity to cast a verdict on this lacklustre Prime Minister and his second-rate ministry. Nothing highlights the division and the ramshackle incompetence of this government than its inability to make a decision on a how-to-vote card. Last week the Prime Minister, after exhausting absolutely every other alternative, did the right thing after witnessing the expose of One Nation in a sting, trying to take NRA money and take it to Australia to corrupt our politics. The Prime Minister did the right thing and instructed the Liberal Party to put One Nation last. It should have been a unifying moment in Australian politics, but the National Party were having none of it, because in Dawson, in Capricornia and in Flynn they have been cuddling up to One Nation, because they want their preferences. Those members should do the right thing: they should put One Nation last and they should explain to their electorates. We can't go overseas and say: 'We want you to buy our beef, our wheat, our sugar, our coal and our iron ore, but we don't like ya. We don't want you near our country. We don't like the look of you and we don't like your religion.' If you can't agree on how to vote— (Time expired)

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