Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator, my result at the last election might tell you something different. Senator McLucas's team struggled to get two quotas. The team I led, the Liberal National Party, achieved three quotas in its own right and did better than any other state coalition group in the country.

Opposition senators interjecting—

The CHAIRMAN: Senator Macdonald, please resume your seat for a moment. The Senate should come to order. I would like people to cease interjecting, and I remind the Senate of the question before the chair. Senator Macdonald.

I personally think that Senator Leyonhjelm's amendments are good amendments—in the expectation that Senator Cameron's amendments might get up. I will be voting against Senator Cameron's amendments because they are the typical sort of rubbish and hypocrisy you get from the Labor Party. But can I just return to the two previous speakers. Immediately after the 2007 and 2010 elections, the Labor Party just pork barrelled and pork barrelled and pork barrelled. When challenged they said, 'We promised this in the election. That's why we're not sending it to Infrastructure Australia.' But to hear Senator Cameron and Senator Ludlam you would think that they sent anything to Infrastructure Australia or indeed to anyone else—except the people they were paying off. For Australia's biggest ever infrastructure project, the National Broadband Network, there was no cost-benefit analysis, no Infrastructure Australia, no anything. The gentleman who used to be in charge of Infrastructure Australia—I thought he was a very good man, and I am sorry he left the organisation—used to say time and time again at estimates: 'Yes, the NBN should have come to us. It's the biggest infrastructure project in Australia but we were specifically excluded from it.'

There is no point in rehashing old battles today except to say the abject hypocrisy of the two previous speakers needs to be yet again highlighted. But I would not be doing my job as a senator for Queensland if I did not expose that hypocrisy and indicate that I believe that the government in the state that I represent, Queensland—and I could say the same for the state governments of New South Wales, Victoria, Tasmania and Western Australia—will responsibly—

Senator Lines interjecting—

How would you know? I understand that you are from Sydney and you were parachuted into Western Australia. So what would you know about Western Australia?

The CHAIRMAN: Senator Macdonald, I would ask you to address your remarks through the chair and ignore the interjections. And I would ask those interjecting to cease interjecting.

I and most of my Senate colleagues have confidence in our state governments to deal with assets that are owned by the states and by the people of those states—through their taxes and through the governments they elect—without it having to come back to this chamber and have the likes of, with all due respect, Senator Cameron deciding whether it is a good idea for my state to sell something. I do not think Senator Cameron has ever even been to Queensland. What would he know about the decisions and the relevance of the sale of assets in my state?

The CHAIRMAN: The question is that amendments (1) and (2) on sheet 7532, which amend amendments (9) and (12) on sheet 7486, be agreed to.

Question negatived.

The CHAIRMAN: The question now is that amendments (9) and (12) on sheet 7486 be agreed to.

Question agreed to.