Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Wong, I am not surprised you are embarrassed about your behaviour today and I am not surprised you are embarrassed about what you are doing to these 30,000 men and women. You should be embarrassed when you take silly points of order which just show how extensive your embarrassment is. You have an obligation to do the right thing today. If you choose to talk about everything bar the bill, as you did—let the record show how much discussion there was about this bill in your 15-minute contribution, Minister—if that is the way you want to approach it, that is fine, but your problem is the Hansard is forever and 30,000 people now know how utterly duplicitous your government is. Thirty thousand people now know that you had the opportunity in the House on 2 June to test the water in relation to this. You did not do so.