Marion Scrymgour (Lingiari, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

It is with a feeling of deep sadness and anger that I have sat, since Monday, listening to the appalling, hypocrisy-ridden speeches by members on the other side, including the one made this morning by the Leader of the Opposition. It was a speech that the Leader of the Opposition could have taken straight from the 2007 Howard intervention in the Northern Territory—and the member for New England would remember that.

There is a pattern to the Leader of the Opposition's words. It's interesting. I sit here. I listen to him. He mentions 'the member for Lingiari', so I must be in his head. But he knows that his whole strategy with this is pure politics. It's not about the kids and it's not about the families, because for nine years the member for New England and the Leader of the Opposition were senior members of a government that gutted the bush. They removed—

You did. You gutted the bush. There is a pattern to the Leader of the Opposition's words. Whenever he needs a political score, he politicises and weaponises Aboriginal communities.

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