Peter Dutton (Dickson, Liberal Party, Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

on indulgence—I join with the Prime Minister in thanking Prime Minister Modi and his delegation for visiting Australia and for paying honour to the relationship. The relationship with India, when we were in government, was quite extraordinary and productive. I want to acknowledge the work of former Prime Minister Morrison and many on the front bench, including Dan Tehan, who was intimately involved in trade negotiations and created the opportunities which, to the government's credit, they've continued in relation to a number of these announcements.

I was late to question time because I'd been meeting with Prime Minister Modi in Sydney this morning. In a way I wish the meeting had gone on a little longer; I would have avoided a bit more of question time. It was a very cordial and engaging discussion. The wide-ranging topics that we traversed gave an indication of the bipartisan support in the relationship. Prime Minister Modi acknowledged that. Of course, as the Prime Minister points out, it followed on from quite an extraordinary event last night. There were lots of people in attendance from both sides of politics. I said to the Prime Minister this morning that every politician there last night was jealous of the fact that he was able to get 20,000 people chanting his surname in unison on the other side of the world.

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