James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Assistant Minister to the Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I am chairman of the 'Bill Shorten Leader of the Opposition appreciation society'. The Leader of the Opposition is actually our patron. We want the Leader of the Opposition to stay being the Leader of the Opposition, because he is not doing a very good job of being Leader of the Opposition, but it is suited to him. We do not want the Leader of the Opposition to become the Prime Minister. We also do not want the member for Grayndler. He is not a bad guy—the member for Grayndler is a pretty good guy. I do not know if I can say his name, but the member for Grayndler is lurking in the shadows. A book is being published. Half the people opposite cannot read—it does not really matter, because it does not have pictures in it.

This is the modern Labor Party, who believe in playing politics. This is the modern Labor Party, who exist purely and solely for politics. Those opposite do not care about public policy and they do not care about the interests of this country; they care about the game of politics. That is what is so sad about the Labor Party. They have not evolved; they have devolved. They are going backwards. The Labor Party of Curtin and Chifley—indeed, you could say the Labor Party of Keating and Hawke—is not the modern Labor Party. The modern Labor Party is purely about politics, purely about saying anything and doing anything in order to win an election, and that is sad.

We witnessed that during the recent election in Australia on 2 July, when the Labor Party, led by the Leader of the Opposition, Bill Shorten, went around the country with Senator Dastyari. Remember Senator Dastyari? I do not know where he has gone lately—Senator Dastyari, with his little EFTPOS machine that he walks around with when he meets people from China. Remember that guy? Senator Dastyari and the Leader of the Opposition were on that bus, going around Australia. And do you know what they did when they went around Australia? They lied. They told the truth never. They fibbed, they fibbled. When truth entered a room they left the room very quickly.

Senator Bilyk interjecting—

You are all fibblers opposite, all of you—these mugwumpian fibblers opposite who do not understand what truth is. In fact, the modern Labor Party treat the truth like anyone would treat a cow pat: they try to avoid it. But I tell you what, cow pats are good for you, and truth is good for you, and the modern Labor Party should understand that one day it should tell the truth, and it will be good for it, because at the recent election the Labor Party's entire campaign was based upon lie after lie after lie. That is bad, and that is sad for Australian democracy and sad for the Australian Labor Party, because they should be presenting a viable opposition to the government. That is the nature of the system of government, of the parliamentary democracy that we have in this country—that we have the coalition, the Liberal-Nationals party, on the right and then we have those ratbags over there on the left. And they should present a viable opposition, but they do not, because all they can do is lie. What is fascinating is we look at this actual—