Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Government in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

This is about why you are blocking the legislation, why you are being led up the garden path to deny 330,000 Australians a tax cut. You are being led astray by people who are leading you to your destruction. They systematically set out to destroy the National Party when they were in government, and Senator Joyce worked it out and called them on it. The press around you, Senator Williams, said that you were a smart bloke and that you recognised what they were doing to you. Well, they are doing it to you again. They did it to you in government—they took you down the garden path; they sneaked up and stole your seats. They are your political enemies. And you have even got rats in the ranks. There are those who have criticised Senator McGauran but there are those who have described him as a visionary for bailing out on the National Party. I have to say to you: I go with the second category. Senator McGauran saw the trap that the Liberals were leading the Nationals into and he bailed out. He did a deal for himself, he secured his preselections and he went out the door.

That is what this is about. Those are the choices that are faced by National Party senators today, Senator Williams. You do not have to be led up the garden path like you have been for the last 11½ or 12½ years. You should be standing up for the 330,000 Australians who should get a tax cut—and you can deliver it for them today, not follow like a lemming as has happened over the last 11½ years. What did that 11½ years in government deliver for the National Party? Less seats, less opportunities, less jobs, less voters. That is a pretty impressive performance!

I thought you had come here to change that, but you are being led down the garden path once again and ultimately you will end up doing what Senator McGauran did if this keeps up—ratting on the party and jumping. So you have to decide whether the National Party is going to continue to be led up the garden path by the Liberals, who want nothing more than your destruction—nothing less, nothing more. They want to obliterate you. They want every single one of your seats, and you are agreeing to it again. You are walking down the garden path. The economic fairies at the bottom of the garden in this chamber are sitting over there at the moment.