Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I had to laugh then. It is not often you get a laugh during this part of the day on a Thursday afternoon in a take note of answers debate, not even on the issue of broadcasting legislation. Senator Crossin—after I do not know how many years she has been here—has finally made me laugh. She thinks that Senator Campbell should not be Treasurer. She has the audacity to venture such an opinion—a senator who will not even see government, a senator who is fighting for her own preselection, a senator coming from the Northern Territory. She is very lucky, other than her factional support, that she is even in this parliament. Yet she dares to venture such a proud and arrogant boast. She thinks not. You have no say over it, Senator Crossin, just as you have no say about the government of the day. I suppose inside this chamber everyone thinks they are a little bigger and more puffed-up in importance than they really are. I can assure you that the two previous speakers really do think that they are better than they are. Have they ever walked past a mirror? Have they ever analysed their own careers? Have they ever dared look into themselves to see what trashed-up careers they really have, particularly the first speaker? Fancy wheeling Senator Carr out. He had already done his research on Senator Campbell.

Senator Carr asked a question today on housing affordability. On the face of it, it was a fair question. We are always happy to receive economic questions on this side. We encourage the other side to ask economic questions to establish their economic credibility. So the opposition got Senator Carr to ask a question on housing affordability. He did not take the opportunity to follow up his own question. There was sincerity in Senator Carr’s question. He had already done his home research on Senator Campbell’s previous careers, previous portfolios and quotes from the Bulletin. It could not matter what Senator Campbell ventured to say today in question time. Senator Carr gravitated to what he knows best—that is, personal attack.

I thought there was something funny and suspicious about question time today. I had an inkling that the Labor Party had completely given up. They spent the first four days asking questions with regard to the Telstra float. That is fair enough. Senator Minchin responded. He obviously browbeat them down so that they could not extend it just one more day on the Telstra float. It would have been more credible than solar panels. That was an issue you picked up from the Sunrise show, anyway—an issue that has been running on the Sunrise show for the last several weeks—but someone now has just got the bright idea it has become a populist issue: ‘Let’s run it.’ But it does not outweigh a more important issue, such as the Telstra issue. I would have given the opposition more credit and so would Senator Minchin. He had probably briefed up before question time on more Telstra questions, but you could not sustain it. You could not sustain a whole week on Telstra questions.

As Senator Abetz even said, ‘Where are all the questions on industrial relations?’—an issue that Labor have said they will make the cornerstone of the next election. This is the No. 1 issue for you. For all you unionists across there—all of you—almost 100 per cent of you are former unionists and certainly belong to a trade union at the moment. Where is the No. 1 issue that you will take to the next election? You have told us that the sky is falling in, that it is detrimental to the Australian worker. Wouldn’t you think you would ask one question in the last five months or so in this chamber? Instead, you raised the issue of solar panels and you used this period of questioning to attack Senator Campbell. Unfortunately, I got distracted. I cannot defend Senator Campbell enough, who, from the moment he came in here, has been a rising star. He is now in cabinet. He has been a junior minister—he has gone through the ranks quicker than most—and is now in one of the most successful cabinets that this country has ever seen.

Senator Campbell brings with him a background, prior to entering government, in small business. This is a man of broad knowledge that is valuable to the parliament, and he has undertaken issues within his own environmental portfolio with distinction. I particularly applaud him for his stance on the whaling issue—an issue that covers all spectrums of the environment that both the conservatives and the radicals in the environmental debate would support him on, and it has been a most difficult political issue to handle. (Time expired)