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

Senator Conroy, you did not hear my question because it was about Northern Australia, which none of you on that side are interested in. I can understand your sensitivity, since you have dumped the only northern senator you have had in this chamber for a long period and replaced her with a male from Brisbane. That means that you have absolutely no interest in Northern Australia, and I can well understand why you attempted to drown out my question on Northern Australia to such an extent that the President, for the first time that I can remember in my long term in the Senate, had to ask that the question be repeated three times because the Labor Party clearly did not want to hear what the coalition is doing about developing Northern Australia.

Not sufficiently satisfied with that, the Labor Party then make up a story: the coalition is going to increase the GST by 15 per cent. I have never heard any coalition senator or member or minister say that once. I have never seen it reported. But does that stop the Labor Party—and the ABC, I might say, and the Fairfax press—headlining that the Turnbull government is going to increase the GST by 15 per cent? It has never been raised in the party room. I am not in cabinet, but I suspect it has never been raised there either. Yet that does not stop the Labor Party making up a story and then running a campaign on the story they have made up. Senator Bullock, I can understand why you have left your faction in Western Australia; the way the Labor Party is going, I am surprised that you do not leave the Labor Party as well. I do not think anyone would blame you. I know you will not. But I cannot understand why you stay with such a mob of ignoramuses who cannot have a policy, and so they make up a policy that the coalition might have.

Similarly, there was a question from the Labor Party about penalty rates and, as the minister answering the question pointed out, the only one that has ever reduced penalty rates in Australia is none other than Mr Bill Shorten, the current leader of the Australian Labor Party in this parliament. Penalty rates are normally a matter for the Fair Work Commission. But in Mr Shorten's case, he did a deal with the bosses—you know, at the top end of town—to take away penalty rates. And we hear a bit of silence for the first time from the opposition when the truth comes out.

I do not know what is wrong with the comprehension of Labor Party senators. Senator Brandis was asked about the GST and he said that a 15 per cent increase in the GST is not a proposal of the Turnbull government. Is that what you said, Senator Brandis?