Julian McGauran (Victoria, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Cameron said that we were the rabble? It has turned out that you are the rabble. Dougie has worked out that you are the rabble. He says:

‘They are stifled in the caucus, they are stifled in the public’—

God, you cannot even speak frankly to the public, according to Senator Cameron—

Cameron said of Labor’s MPs, ‘and so people see the Labor Party having no values and no vision on a whole range of issues and I think that must change ...

It seems to be like having a political lobotomy.’

They are ‘zombies’, he said. You could not be more frank than that. I make this observation because it is only Monday of a two-week sitting. I have got to make my calls early these days and my call is this: if this drift goes on much longer—and I am only talking about until Christmas time—those polls are going to lock in. You are about the only government that has never enjoyed a honeymoon. Every government in history since Federation has enjoyed a honeymoon. You have never even had a honeymoon under this Prime Minister, and she is now collapsing in the polls. Your primary vote now is getting to very dangerous levels and if it still holds till Christmas, I will make this call now: you are gone. You will be having an election this time next year.

What is more, the Prime Minister—with all those polls around personalities and the capabilities of the leadership—is now starting to slump. That was always something you could hang onto under Kevin Rudd as compared to the opposition leader, or Julia Gillard as compared to the opposition leader. But now that has fallen. Now that is slumping in the polls. And if that is not turned around by Christmas, and you have not got much time to act, then I say that that is going to lock in and the public are not going to be turned around by any of your false rhetoric.

You have a Prime Minister who is a giggling gertie in this country and on her overseas trips. That is all I ever see. She has become an embarrassment with all of the giggling that goes on. There is nothing statesmanlike about the Prime Minister at all. She has become a total embarrassment. I only make those points as a sideline to the real address I want to make.

Whilst I berate and point out to you—no worse than your own side, by the way: Senator Faulkner, Senator Cameron or former Senator Richardson, who is really laying it out for you—there is one policy you will introduce that concerns me greatly as a Victorian senator. I have no doubt you will introduce a policy at some point in this term to strip and effectively abolish the Australian Building and Construction Commission. As a Victorian senator I am very concerned about this because the building and construction industry is one of the largest industries in Victoria. It drives Victoria. Of course, it was the epicentre of the Cole royal commission into the corruption and the illegalities of this industry. It basically all came out of Victoria.