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

I want to pick up a few things that previous speakers have said. I do not want to dwell on them too long; it is not worth it. I have a set speech here that I have spent all afternoon preparing and I seek to deliver it, but I would like to pick up on something Senator Furner said. Like previous speakers, but with a little more spite, he introduced the politics of envy. I know it is a cultural fact within the Labor Party, but I want to pick him up on his comments in regard to Mr Turnbull. He asked the question: who are Mr Turnbull and we on this side of the house representing? I would ask the same question of senators on the other side.

Who are they representing, when the member for Lowe, 10 years in this parliament—I would be immediately struck off if I said what I thought of him—raises the matter of the size of a plate of beef stroganoff? He raised that in the parliament. This member represents, in a great proportion of his electorate—a marginal seat which, from time to time, has swung between Labor and Liberal—pensioners, working-class people, working families and the middle class. And this is what he brings to the parliament. Senator Furner dares raise the question of the politics of envy and Mr Turnbull when one of his own members has acted in a way unprecedented in politics. Obviously being in government has gone to this member’s head.