Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I think the great Gareth Evans might have also said to the Labor Party, as has every other serious Labor Party leader: 'Sign the China free trade agreement.' Apart from that, there is nothing memorable that I can recall in anything that Mr Evans has ever said to this chamber.

I am sorry Senator Sterle is leaving the chamber, because I do want to respond to his well-meaning but inaccurate comments about the sugar industry. Before I do that, I explain to members of the Labor Party who might be interested that they keep talking about my friend and colleague Senator Canavan but Senator Canavan and I are in the same political party. We are in the Liberal National Party of Queensland, which is the Queensland division of the Liberal Party of Australia. In this parliament and elsewhere, the coalition is one big, happy family. We are a broad church. We have various different people with different inclinations on policy issues, and that is what has made the coalition government so strong. We all work together. We are all interested in water policy; we are all interested very much in the sugar industry. Senator Sterle asked: what has the coalition ever done for the Queensland sugar industry? I will tell you, Senator Sterle, because I was a member of the government at the time. Back in 2004, we provided over $400 million to save the sugar industry from the difficulties it was going through at the time, as a result, partly, of the deregulation of the sugar industry in Queensland by the then state Labor government. It was the state Labor government that deregulated the sugar industry, which Senator Sterle, as I understand him, is now suggesting should be re-regulated. I also say, Senator Sterle, that you complain about—