Claire Moore (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I was interested when I saw this motion that it seemed we had an expectation that a change of government—a change of government that we all acknowledge happened late last year—was going to somehow magically fulfil all the wishes of everyone across the whole of the community at once. Now less than 12 months later we have an urgency motion that says that everything is ‘rooned’ since the Labor government came to power. I will speak, Mr Acting Deputy President, as you well know, particularly on the issues of health in this area, but I just want to take a little bit of time to talk about a concern I have, which was actually the focus of Senator Boswell’s comments—that is, an inference that the only people who have knowledge of or care about those issues to do with rural or regional Australia are those who are in either the National Party or the Liberal Party, and I think that Senator Boswell was speaking particularly on behalf of the National Party.