Concetta Fierravanti-Wells (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Ageing) Share this | Hansard source

Before I get into the substance of my contribution, I just want to share with the Senate that some senior shadows on the coalition side will be visiting China during the first week of December as guests of the Chinese Communist Party—they are Senator Brandis, Senator Johnston, Senator Scullion and Senator Bishop, along with Mr Morrison and Mr Truss. Just because they are visiting China does not make them communists, Senator Cameron. That is the fallacy in your argument. Indeed, I confess that I myself have visited Vietnam. I visited a number of people in Vietnam, but does that make me a communist? Absolutely not. Senator Cameron, would you describe me as a communist? I do not think so.

I will now move to a number of matters that address the motion before us. Before I do, I would like to pick up on some comments that Senator Bob Carr made today in answer to Senator Fifield. He stated that:

… there was not even an allegation in all those question times over 10 years—all those question times in the bearpit of the New South Wales parliament, regarded as the toughest in Australia.

Which rock are you under, Senator Carr? Did you not listen? Obviously you were not interested in listening to what I had to say yesterday as I reiterated allegation after allegation. Indeed, I only shared with the Senate a smattering of allegations in relation to what has happened in New South Wales. The issue here is for you to answer, Mr Carr. It goes to your very judgement. That is, it was under your watch that Eddie Obeid was made a minister in New South Wales. It was under your watch that people like Mr Macdonald continued to be ministers. What is coming out of New South Wales at the moment, speaking as a person from that state, is absolutely appalling. I am ashamed when I open the newspaper and read those things—the shocking revelations that are coming out of New South Wales and the ICAC hearings.

It is not just the coalition saying so. Kevin Rudd was on Q&A the other evening. He said earlier in the week that the whole future of the Labor Party could depend on cleaning up these matters. Let us not forget that it is the Sussex Street machine that gave us Eddie Obeid, that gave us Ian Macdonald, that gave us the stinking system of patronage, the culture that did really bad things in New South Wales under a series of governments, all of the Labor persuasion. It is the same Sussex Street machine that organised the political assassination of a Prime Minister in this country, an assassination in which the Prime Minister of today was complicit. It is the same Sussex Street machine that has given us political family upon political family, that gave us Karl Bitar and Mark Arbib. We all know their history in this place. This is the same Sussex Street machine which is today sustaining the Labor government in Canberra. That is the reality. New South Wales and Sussex Street and all their dirty machinations have put this woman into power and they are the ones sustaining her in power.

I am sorry that Senator Cameron is no longer in the chamber because he is absolutely right when he says that the people of western Sydney are sick and tired of this Labor government. They saw it for 16 years. They saw it under successive premiers in New South Wales—including you, Mr Carr. The gestation of the corruption that is now finding its way into the public with these ICAC inquiries had at its heart a time during your government, Mr Carr, because you are the one—