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

I move:

That the Senate take note of answers given by the Minister for Immigration and Citizenship (Senator Evans) to questions without notice asked by Senator Abetz today relating to the budget.

The gang of four has now become the gang of three, and the 2IC has been rewarded for her treachery and disloyalty and taken over from the worst Prime Minister in the history of this country. After accepting her 30 pieces of silver, she has once again betrayed her commitment and conviction about the previous policies of what has proved to be a hopeless and hapless government, of which she was the architect. One of the first things she has done is ditch the taxpayer funded advertising justifying their great big new tax on mining. I salute the fact that the advertising is not going ahead, because it was a waste of taxpayers’ money and it was an abuse of the privilege that this government received.

But what is astounding is that yesterday, the day before and the day before that, Ms Gillard, now Prime Minister Gillard—it fills me with fear—was justifying this expenditure. Thirty-eight million dollars was well-spent yesterday, apparently, but not today. This joins the long list of ditched and dumped disastrous policies and justifications this government are trying to hide under the political corpse of Kevin Rudd. But it will not work, because the structure of this government is essentially the same. The faceless, backroom boys are still pulling the strings of whatever puppet they have in charge. It will not work. The Australian people will see through it.

Kevin Rudd, for all his failings, was named ‘Canada’s mining man of the year’, thanks to his work to destroy Australia’s mining industry. But while he was getting that award, there was strong competition in the Labor Party for the award of ‘undermining man of the year’. Could it be the triple F of Feeney, Farrell and Faulkner or the ABC of undermining: Arbib, Burke or Conroy? All of them have butchered a Prime Minister in the greatest act of betrayal that the Labor Party has ever seen. The list of backroom people—