Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I want to acknowledge the contribution from Senator Edwards, a fine senator whom I have had the opportunity to do much work with on many of these issues. For the record, I am happy to endorse him for any position he ever runs for! Some questions were asked in question time regarding this agreement between the National Party and the Liberal Party. Was it worth $2 billion? Was it worth $4 billion? We are not sure of the amount. I am getting a bit confused by this because we have heard some very different things in this chamber. On one hand, we heard from the National Party that it was an amazing deal, that they went in hard, that they negotiated tough, that they demanded a list of things from the government and that the government willingly oblige. And then we heard from Senator Cormann, who effectively said that all of this had already been promised and there was nothing in the agreement. I am confused about whether the National Party has played the Liberal Party or the Liberal Party has played the National Party. If there is anyone whose word I will take on this, it is Senator Canavan. You can call this what you want. You can call it a negotiation. You can call it an agreement. Personally, I call it a ransom payment. It is a $2 billion to $4 billion ransom that was paid to the National Party to get an agreement up. They even held up question time yesterday to be able to strengthen their negotiating position. It had all the hallmarks of a ransom payment. There was the media. There was the leaking about it earlier. There was the press conference. The one thing that has been missing is the proof of life ;that is the only bit we are yet to see.

And today Senator Cash, in response to questions, went on with the outrageous claim that the Labor Party had been xenophobic in our position on trade. Yesterday they were telling us we were 'Xenophonic'! Today they are telling us that we are xenophobic. I want to explain what 'Xenophonic' means. I have actually been looking this up. 'Xenophonic' means 'having a fear of two or more Nick Xenophons in the same place at the same time'. I can understand that they have been pretty afraid of this. They are so 'Xenophonic' on the other side that they got rid of their Prime Minister! They are so 'Xenophonic' that they are about to make Christopher Pyne the Defence Minister of Australia! This is a frightening set of situations. And they accuse the Labor Party of xenophobia! In question time we had members opposite yelling out comments that somehow in this chamber it is now allegedly appropriate to say that you have to 'talk Australian, mate', that there is a ruling that this is somehow now appropriate language to be using in this chamber. Frankly, what we saw in the answers at question time today is a government that is devoid of action and devoid of any real plan. What we saw was audition after audition for people's own jobs.