Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

You only bet up to a limit, I know. I would not mind betting that it will not be too long before our current Prime Minister, in spite of all of her promises, will actually do what Mr Abbott has suggested and pick up the phone to the president and have the boat people also dealt with at other places in the Pacific.

Here you have another example of the hypocrisy of the Greens and you are going to get a lot of that in the next couple of days as the Greens—they talk about how they oppose these things—support when the crunch comes their mates in the Labor Party to adopt the Pacific solution, if I may call it that. What confidence can anyone have in the Greens? I just cannot wait until the new Senate starts and we have Senator elect Rhiannon in the Greens little group here. Unfortunately you do not bet, Senator Xenophon, but I would not mind betting that she will be making a leadership bid very soon after she gets here and who would discourage her from attempting to do that and give a bit of real exposure to the Greens as to what they really stand for. I do not think Senator elect Rhiannon tries to hide where she is coming from, where she is going to or what her goals are, and that might be a refreshing change even if it is a change that is totally abhorrent to particularly those of us on this side of the chamber.