Ron Boswell (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

and Senator McLucas knows who I am talking about—‘because those people at that meeting had their say in the highest court in Australia, the Australian parliament, and it went down by a tied vote.’ Senator McLucas was there. She was on the other side. She is supposed to be representing Cairns, but she was AWL when Cairns needed her. The point I made to McKenzie was this: do not ever back the blue-collar worker, the tradie, the people that usually support Labor, when it comes to a race with the Greens. They will come second every time by a long way, and that is what is happening here. You have put forward a dog and now you expect us to give you a tick through. I find it hard to accept that we cannot wait even a couple of hours, that we have to push this through in the Senate. Why do we have to push it through? There is absolutely no reason to push it through. There are a billion reasons—in fact, there are 70 billion reasons—why we should not push it through. There are 70 billion reasons, and you are going to inflict them on Australia. That is what it is going to cost this nation.

It will be churned around and there will be some benefits. The guys that drive the Mercedes, the guys that drive the Volvos, the bankers and the traders will love you. They will say: ‘You beaut. The Labor Party’s our friend.’ They will love you. They will say, ‘You are going to make us a fortune.’ There will be maybe 200 or 300 screen jockeys that will make a lot of money. But that money will be taken from the working families and given to the guys that drive the Volvos. They will be able to afford the luxury cars that you increase tax on. They will be able to afford two of them. They will buy one for their wife and they will buy one for themselves. You are going to make them a billion dollars. You are going to make billions for them, and you want us to condone it. Come on. You have lost your way, but we certainly have not. We know where we are going. We have always known where we were going and we are going to stick the course.