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

Well, just then, Mr President, the member for Hotham, Simon Findlay Crean, has been sacked. This government is now chaotic. It is out of control. It is beyond contempt that the former leader of the Labor Party, a person who is highly respected, has been sacked by a Prime Minister who has gone completely and utterly rogue. The Prime Minister has gone rogue. The country is without leadership. It is chaotic. I look at Senator Conroy; the man looks like he has seen a ghost, and the ghost looks awfully like Senator Cameron.

We have to do something about trying to bring some sanity back into where this nation is. It surely cannot go on like this. We know that there are decent people on the Labor side: Minister Ferguson, Minister Crean—I have to say it—former Minister Evans, former Minister Faulkner. There are decent people, but this chaos has got to come to a conclusion. The Australian people deserve better than this. You cannot use the Australian nation as some sort of plaything for a manic cat. This is out of control—totally and utterly out of control.

Now we have Mr Windsor with Mr Oakeshott and Mr Wilkie who have moved votes of no confidence. Well, I told you so: that first they would cripple you, then they would kill you—that is exactly what they would do. Why on earth would you have hitched your caravan to those people? They have done nothing but drag you into oblivion. And here are the other ones, right beside us here: the Greens, with their crazy policies, one after the other, after the other, after the other. They took you on a trip on the carbon tax and destroyed your party. They took you on a trip banning the live cattle trade and destroyed your party. They have taken you on a trip on so many social agendas and destroyed your party. Yet you let them do it to you. Why do you let them do it to you? Why don't you stand up for yourselves? They will leave you nowhere but nihilism. And Mr Oakeshott and Mr Windsor right from the start were going to be trouble.

People are saying now, 'Oh, well, if we go from Prime Minister Gillard.' I don't know where you will end up at 4.30—who would know? Who would know who will be the Prime Minister by tonight? Who would know how many more prime ministers this nation will have? But it is not going to be the Prime Minister that causes you the problem. It is the debt, Senator Conroy, that is going to cause you a problem—$268.8 billion in gross debt, and we are heading towards our next ceiling. Of course, Minister Conroy will talk about net debt, but he cannot explain it. He does not care—we are just going through credit limits: went through the $75 billion limit, went through the $200 billion limit, went through the quarter of a trillion dollar limit and are nudging up against the $300 billion. It is the most tawdry financial management that any nation has ever had—

Senator Wong interjecting—

and, Minister Wong, you were the finance minister for it. You caused it. You brought this upon yourself. You are hopeless, and you will be marked by the Australian people.