Stephen Conroy (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

There is no point showing him some Twitter feed to try and pretend that people are on your side, Senator Di Natale. Let me promise you, they are not on your side. Your members are not on your side. They know a sell-out when they see it. They can smell a sell-out, and no amount of convincing yourselves each morning in the mirror for the next six months—'we didn't sell out; we didn't sell out'. You will have to keep telling yourselves that because your members will know. Your members will know by Christmas that you protected the big end of town, that you caved in when you had the numbers. It was not like it was in the balance. We had said 'no'.

And I was very offended by something you said earlier. I have spoken on it already, Senator Whish-Wilson, but I do not think you were here. You were pretending that we were somehow on the verge of selling out, and you took the deal before we did—Senator Whish-Wilson, that one was beneath you. You are better than that. We had absolutely, emphatically rejected the offer last night—rejected it. It was a joke.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Yes, they made us an offer last night—they picked up the phone—and we said 'no'. You mugs picked up the phone and said 'yes'. You picked up the phone and said 'yes'. We rejected it last night. They kept coming back and knocking on our door, so don't you fabricate history by trying to justify your behaviour by saying that we were on the verge—

Senator Cormann interjecting—

You were not on the phone call. We were not on the verge—

A government senator interjecting—

You were not even on the phone call—unless, you are keeping track of Mr Morrison's phone calls!

A government senator interjecting—

Oh, yes, absolutely! There are those of you who will have to try and justify protecting the biggest private companies in this country when you had the numbers. It is not that there was a negotiation and it was in the mix—that there might have been a win here and there might have been a loss there. We had the numbers. We actually got together and got the numbers, and we got an outcome where the government was over a barrel. And you blinked. You let them off the hook. You blinked!