Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Minister Crean—there we go! Nobody knows where he comes from. It does not really matter. Who cares? He is a bloke from down south. I believe in Minister Crean. But I believe what he said on 29 May 1997 when he was a person based firmly in the Labor Party with its core belief structure, the oldest party in Australia. That party has since left. Now I think the only party that represents their views is sitting right beside me—the DLP. That is it. That is the true soul of the Labor Party now. But I believed this person when he said that he believed in the steel industry because it supported the manufacturing industry of this nation, the defence of our nation and, in his own words, thousands of jobs. I believed in Minister Crean totally in 1997. Minister Crean in 2011 is a completely and utterly different animal. But he is probably the best animal of all the animals on the other side.