Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Minister for Employment) Share this | Hansard source

When Senator Wong starts to lecture the Senate on ministerial integrity and ministerial consistency, you know that something has gone terribly wrong or that we are living in a parallel universe—she who trumpeted with her then leader that climate change was the greatest moral challenge of our time. Remember that? And they dumped it like a used tissue as soon as it became politically opportunistic for them to do so. These are the standards from those who claimed that no carbon tax would guide their government and then introduced a carbon tax. They have the audacity to come into this place and talk to us about consistency and integrity in government.

I will tell you what consistency and integrity in government is all about, and it is simply this. All of us, from time to time, may engage in a degree of hyperbole in the heat of question time and the heat of debate which we may then, on due consideration and reflection, regret. What is the decent and proper thing to do when, on mature reflection, you have re-read that which you said in the heat of the moment? It is to come into this place as soon as practical and say, 'I recant and, if I've caused offence, I apologise.'