Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

It is quite astounding: there is a Premier whose name dare not be spoken in this chamber. In 10 minutes, we have probably heard Mike Rann’s name mentioned twice or maybe three times. There is a very good reason Labor do not want to acknowledge Mike Rann. Mike Rann has been a failed premier. He is damaged goods and the Labor Party, particularly Senator Wortley and Senator McEwen, know it. It was not that long ago when their faction was having a little tete-a-tete at parliament house in South Australia. They decided then that they wanted to install Kevin Foley as Premier, because they know that Mike Rann is damaged goods and electoral poison.

What have we got? We hear today from the Labor Party all about their environmental record. I have to say I am torn. I support climate sceptics because they have got it right more often than this government has got it right. I also support the Save the Royal Adelaide Hospital campaign, because the doctors there know what the health and welfare needs are of South Australian community. But this government and the Rann government were asked to choose between health and climate change sceptics. What did they choose? They chose the climate change sceptics. This flies in the face of their constant assertions that climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time.

Let me suggest to you that when faced with a moral challenge this government has been exposed again and again and again. The South Australian election is not only about morals and the choices that the South Australian premier has made; it is about the morals and integrity of this government. I would say that Senator Wortley and her crew have been left wanting. Their sails have fallen and they are floating becalmed in a sea of guilt and failure. You know that, Senator Wortley. You know that, because the hypocrisy is clear for all to see. Not only has the leader of your government said that climate change is the greatest moral challenge of our time, but even the hapless and failed and deeply unpopular—and I do not just mean at home, I mean the deeply publicly unpopular—Mike Rann has said that climate change is ‘something I am passionate about’. We can add that to the list of what Mike Rann is passionate about, because his other passions are very clear.

What we also know is that no-one in the Labor Party is passionate about him. You wanted to get rid of him, Senator Wortley, and your colleagues in South Australia wanted to get rid of him because they know that he is electoral poison. He cannot be trusted. That is why you do not want to utter his name more than once or twice. You want to go into all your diatribe and dribble, Senator Wortley, about what this government or the Rann Labor government has achieved.

The fact is they have achieved very little. Whatever you say about their commitment to the environment, their commitment to hospitals or their commitment to South Australia, it has all been undone because you were forced to make a choice. You sided against the ‘great moral issue of our time’. How can you be proud of that? I suspect it was a pretty tough ask: which one of the Labor senators was going to come in here and defend it? Senator Wong had a crack at it in question time and failed miserably, because she could not justify why she was asked to endorse the climate sceptics ahead of the campaign to save the existing hospital.

We would ask the same of you, Senator Wortley, or of Senator McEwen: why have you been asked to endorse the climate sceptics rather than Save the Royal Adelaide Hospital? You talk about a plan but you are comparing a plan with the great moral issue of our time. You are caught in a conundrum. It is a conundrum where you have been forced to make a choice and your choice has been exposed. The choice you failed to make was to replace the damaged goods, Mike Rann—that is, the passionate Mike Rann, the Mike Rann that is apparently taking South Australia forward. If that is forward we might as well get Kim Carr to take this country forward, because it is going back to the socialist fifties.

There is an appalling government in South Australia. You know that. We know that. Mike Rann is the unutterable name in the election. That is why, as you drive through the good burbs of Adelaide, you do not see pictures of Mike Rann. They are certainly not where he lives, because he lives in Norwood and his electorate is out in the working-class suburb of Playford or Elizabeth. You do not see pictures of Mike Rann, because he is electoral poison. He is the Mark Latham of the South Australian election. No-one trusts him. No-one can rely on what he says. And no-one can rely on the words or actions of the Labor Party. They have been caught—caught in their own tautology and nonsense.

Question agreed to.