Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

You are right, Senator Coonan; it is a disgrace. They should have said: ‘We will sit down in a calm, timely manner and discuss the issues. When we have a deal, we will recall the parliament and deal with it.’ But today the Senate is sitting—and it costs about $10,000 an hour to run this show—and we will be hearing speech after speech after speech from Labor senators. I am sure Senator Jacinta Collins will be next. This is only to buy time for Mr Swan and Senator Xenophon to cobble together a deal. Why wasn’t the Senate adjourned until such time as a deal had been reached? They should act in a statesmanlike way; they should not use bullyboy tactics to try to force people into a position.

The Senate voted on these measures 15 or 16 hours ago. What has changed, other than this package that could never be amended all of a sudden now being capable of being amended? From day one we said that we oppose the package, but we also said that we were willing to negotiate around the package. Did Labor approach us? Never. All Mr Rudd was able to say was, ‘Get out of our way.’ He refused to get off his bulldozer. Well, the Senate has voted and as a result Mr Rudd’s bulldozer has stalled. He has been humiliated into backing down, he has been humiliated by the Greens and I assume he will be humiliated by Senator Xenophon. Quite frankly, I do not know what Senator Fielding will get out of this, other than a legacy that Family First in this parliament voted for $9,500 of debt for every man, woman and child. That is not a great legacy. Senator Fielding, it is not too late to change your mind. There is an alternative approach, and that is the alternative approach put by Mr Turnbull, which does include tax cuts. Like every other package in the world—