Steve Hutchins (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am talking about New South Wales Liberals, Senator Mason. Then you go ahead and you have a choice between three New South Wales Liberals to run your party. Crikey. You have Mr Abbott, Mr Hockey and Mr Turnbull, all of them out of the New South Wales division, where you only picked up one seat overall in the federal election, the seat of Macquarie, which was not contested by a sitting member. How is it that you can go back to your party room and look at any of these New South Wales Liberals and expect them to deliver for you? Tony Abbott had his fingerprints all over the Lindsay preselection and in the end you could not win that seat with all that we had at the time going against us. I am very grateful to the New South Wales division of the Liberal Party. It is important that they be recognised for their contribution to the federal Labor government. It may be that we should strike a coin or a medal to Tony Abbott and the New South Wales Liberals. And if you saw or listened to the debate between Barry O’Farrell and Kristina Keneally the other day you would think that they are at it again. They do not know what they are about to do and all they are doing is being against. I am concerned that we might see a Liberal government in New South Wales and we do not know what they would do.

In the time left to me I wanted to speak about the people who advocate the decriminalisation of drugs. I do not think I am going to have the opportunity to make the contribution that I want to at the moment and I will have to leave that for another time.