James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. I encourage Senator Conroy to do some reading in the first instance but also encourage him to read some of the books of Boris Johnson in terms of his views on higher education, because all this Labor negative party wants to do is say no. All they want to do is run scare campaigns. They want to run a scare campaign about taxes. Let's talk about their record on taxes in terms of the carbon tax. Let's talk about their record in government, but they do not want to talk about 2007-2013. To them it was some sort of Doctor Who episode that never actually happened; they went into the vortex and forgot about it!

I can understand why Labor would want to forget about 2007-2013: it was a terrible government. It made the Whitlam government look good. But at least the Whitlam government and Hawke-Keating governments had policies. They had values. As mad as Whitlam and his cabinet were, they had policies and they had values. But why is the modern Labor Party not talking about the reforms of the Hawke-Keating era? Why aren't you looking back in your history book, Senator Conroy? Open your history books up—