Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I rise today to ask a question on behalf of all Western Australians: where the bloody hell is Scott Morrison? The Prime Minister has not set foot in Western Australia for an extraordinary 17 months, and he's not being entirely honest about the reasons he's been neglecting that state. He tried to pin the blame on his failure to head west during the state election campaign on border restrictions—

Government Members:

Government members interjecting—

Madeleine King (Brand, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Trade) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

just like those fools opposite are doing, ignoring the fact that, with the G2G PASS, he is able to enter. Who did enter the state? The Leader of The Nationals came to Geraldton just during the election campaign. Mind you, that didn't save the seat of Geraldton from falling to Labor in the recent election, or the seat of Warren-Blackwood falling from The Nationals to Labor in the recent election. The real reason the Prime Minister doesn't go to WA is that he knows the Liberal brand is absolutely toxic in Western Australia. Just look at that election result. The WA Liberals have been reduced to an irrelevant rabble—two seats in a 59-seat lower house. Western Australians have not forgotten that the Morrison government, those opposite, the WA Liberals and the Attorney-General Christian Porter backed Clive Palmer's failed attempt to rip down the border at the height of the COVID pandemic. They know this government does not care about Western Australia and they saw right through the absurd claim of the Prime Minister that he had saved Western Australia and Mark McGowan's government. What an absurd claim. The truth is that Mark McGowan won the state election for Western Australia. It had nothing to do with Mr Morrison and his failed—

Sharon Claydon (Newcastle, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I give the call to the member for Wentworth.