Gavin Marshall (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

You say ‘after three minutes’. That is true, and I am coming to that point. Again, Senator Ronaldson’s unhealthy obsession with Mr Cheeseman took up, I think, most of his contribution to this debate.

Senator Ronaldson interjecting—

I know you are getting a bit embarrassed about it, Senator Ronaldson, but, seriously, you have raised Mr Cheeseman in this place so often. I know it must be very disappointing for you, but he is out there. He will hold the seat, because he is doing a damned fine job and he is working hard.

We had a discussion earlier today on the motion to take note of the ministerial statement on the Home Insulation Program, and I thought at that time that we were actually starting to get some quite reasonable contributions from some of those opposite. In fact, Senator Birmingham started, I think for the first time, to acknowledge what some of the real problems were with this particular program.

The government, through the ministerial statement today, has been very upfront and honest about some of the challenges that we have faced, some of the problems with the program and the consequences of those problems. The ministerial statement goes to a process of actually addressing those issues. It is disappointing that too many people on the opposition’s side seem to take some great joy in some of the bad consequences of the some of the problems that this program had. But we want to get on with the job of fixing it. We acknowledge the problems that are there. We want to get on and fix some of those issues—