Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a brief personal explanation as I claim to have been misrepresented.

Leave granted.

Last evening the member for Lindsay made a contribution, a rare one, in the House of Representatives about me. There are a number of untruths in it, and I want to correct three of them. Firstly, she states:

Senator Hutchins has lost everyone from his faction. Leo McLeay, Senator Forshaw and Michael Lee have all departed the parliament.

Senator Forshaw is here in the chamber. Secondly, she says that I have never held a truck-driving licence or driven a truck. Before I entered parliament, before I became a union official, my last job was working for Sutherland council as a garbo, where we all drove the trucks. Thirdly, and finally, Miss Kelly quotes extensively from the Latham Diaries, in which I do not come out too well. Apparently, there are 17 mentions of me in there. I think it is quite a badge of honour to be slagged off by that Labor rat!