John Faulkner (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Not only is Senator Brandis overwhelmingly negative, he does not know the standing orders of the Senate. I suggest he goes and learns them. It will do him good for the future as those long years in opposition roll on.

We now have a low unemployment rate, too—just 5.2 per cent, compared to 11.7 per cent in Europe. Over 840,000 jobs have been created since Labor came to office in 2007. Inflation is contained within the RBA's target band, giving the RBA the flexibility it needs to keep interest rates low, taking the pressure off mortgagees. Interest rates are currently lower than they were at any point during the period of the last Liberal government. And we have low net debt: as a percentage of GDP it is around one-tenth of the rate across major advanced economies.

It was the American writer Mark Twain—I believe previously quoted by some opposition senators—who said in his 1889 novel A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court:

… one mustn't criticise other people on grounds where he can't stand perpendicular himself.

Mr Abbott and his Liberal liegemen in the Senate here could well take account of Mark Twain's advice.