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

In a few moments a number of members will walk through that door to be sworn back in or sworn in for the first time as members of parliament: the members for Longman, Braddon, Mayo and Fremantle, and the new member for Perth. It will be a joyous day for many of us on this side of the House. The day after the by-election, the Prime Minister said to all Australians that he was going to look very thoughtfully and humbly at the way the people voted. The people of Australia are unaccustomed to humility from this Prime Minister, but something he can show humility on is his attitude to the One Nation party. People should be quite concerned about the way that this government was very keen to play footsies with the One Nation party in the Queensland by-elections. The people have sent a very clear message that you cannot walk both sides of the street. The question for the Prime Minister is this: will he now direct the Liberal and National Party operations to put the One Nation party last in the forthcoming federal election? It is a pretty simple question: will you direct your machine to put the One Nation party last in the forthcoming federal election? There have been Liberal Party prime ministers who have had the courage to send a direction to their party machines to do that. In October 2000 Prime Minister John Howard did exactly that. It's time for this Prime Minister— (Time expired)