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

I think Senator Brandis could well have been talking about the opposition debaters in this particular debate before the chamber. If I have heard a mediocre attack on the government that was it. And if that is the best the Labor Party can do then I do not think we have a great deal to worry about at the next election. I do go off the subject to simply say in defence of Senator Brandis, not that he needs me to defend him, that he has done such an excellent job that every attack the Labor Party has addressed to him as been flitted away, almost like brushing a fly away from the front of your face. The Labor Party's last great attempt to get Senator Brandis was the Gleeson Solicitor-General affair, when the Labor Party set up this sham inquiry to get Senator Brandis. All they achieved was to get the Solicitor-General—that Mr Dreyfus himself appointed to that position just a few weeks before the 2013 election. I can understand why the Labor Party are fixated with Senator Brandis.