Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

You chose to ignore this. This is a very vexed question. You chose to ignore what he said—that the Vegemite may be having a placebo effect or that they may be convinced it has a function that it does not. I am telling you the Vegemite is going in. You should be interested about how we might educate the people on Mornington Island if the Vegemite is not working. These are people who have got seven times the capacity to have concerns about their kidneys. Families are being separated because of these home-brews. They are being separated from their families and are off to Townsville never to come home—some of them do not have the capacity. This is not a Greyhound bus ride, as you ought to know being from North Queensland.

I think that was a new low that question today. Did it have any interest in the people of Mornington Island? No it did not. Did it show any interest in how we might be able to support this minister and the Assistant Minister for Health after their visit there to do something about this atrocious situation? No it did not. It was just a collage of cheap shots directed at our minister, who works very hard in this place. He is a very genuine, very decent man. I am telling you, this is one area—

Opposition senators interjecting—