Dean Smith (WA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Let me begin with some congratulations. This is a very positive sign that we can look towards for 2015. At last, the Labor opposition have brought to the Senate during question time some issues worthy of debate. Congratulations. You will not be surprised to hear that senators on this side have a different point of view. You will not be surprised to hear that senators on this side reflect some of the attitudes across the Australian community. But, before I talk about the disgraceful episode that was Labor's period of governance in Indigenous affairs, before I talk about what happened to education, before I talk about what happened to employment, before I talk about what the Australian National Audit Office, the independent auditor, had to say in 2012 about Labor's performance, let us put it in context.

Labor want you to believe that on Sunday, 8 September 2013 the world changed. Labor want you to believe that everything that happened before Sunday, 8 September 2013 no longer matters. They want their legacy purged from your memory. They do not want you to be reminded about the economic vandalism. They do not want you to be reminded about the poor policy, matched only by poor implementation. They do not want you to know that much of what the government is facing now is inherited and caused by the inaction or poor action of the previous government. Nothing demonstrates the romanticism, the revisionism, of Labor more than the comments of Bill Shorten this morning. What did Bill Shorten say this morning? He said, 'Today is the anniversary of the election of the Whitlam government.' What anniversary did he not reflect on? He did not reflect on the fact that it is also the anniversary of the election of Mark Latham, when Mark Latham beat Kim Beazley by one vote in the Labor caucus room. Why doesn't Labor want you to talk about or hear about Mark Latham?