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

Thank you, Mr Deputy President. Clearly, Senator Wong, who was 100 per cent behind Kevin Rudd last night, is feeling a little challenged. But I would return to the backflip by Ms Gillard on the $38 million waste of taxpayers’ money. So proud were the government of their track record that they had to knife the architect and replace him with the 2IC.

I know there are those who clung loyally to the flag that supported such disastrous policies. I know that Senators Cameron and Wong came out supporting and justifying all of the policies of the Rudd government, but the problem is that it is not going to change now. They have changed the colour of the hair of the puppet at the top but the same backroom boys will be doing the job of ruining this country day by day. It is an absolutely undistinguished record. What they have done to the mining industry is to challenge it. They have justified their great big new tax on mining by saying that it is actually going to grow the mining industry. We now know that is absolute poppycock, and we know it because Ms Gillard can no longer justify the misinformation that was put out by this government, a government that was intent on spin and propaganda rather than on substance and the national interest.

It is galling to me that Senator Wong stands up and talks about relevance. Let me say this: Senator Wong unfortunately has been deemed irrelevant by this government because the portfolios that she has continued to hold have proved to be perhaps the most disastrous of a very bad and failed government. So while Ms Gillard will be saying that things are going to change and that they want to enter into a truce, such statements are motivated simply by electoral opportunism. They want to buy some peace so that they can stop the haemorrhaging and hide these disastrous and failed policies under the corpse of the former Prime Minister. He was a flawed Prime Minister, a failed Prime Minister, a disastrous Prime Minister. He was a Prime Minister who has really done no credit to Labor or to this country. But that is not the point. Ms Gillard was entrusted as the deputy leader and she has displayed no loyalty. This is the greatest act of betrayal.