Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

What a feeble defence. Even when the Senator had an opportunity to make an argument that I did not tell the truth, he did not relate it to the decision of the Australian Labor Party to cease the live cattle export. That is what I was expecting him to say, and there is a reason he cannot. And I have got some respect for this Senator. He will not mislead this place, and if he had said that he would have misled this place.

Under Labor, for so many decades, every time they were office they could not use their telephone. There were no roads built or invested in across the western parts of our country, the bush and the provinces, to develop things. They have no members out there because they would just tar and feather them and run them out of town, between them and the Greens.

I invited the Greens yesterday to come with me up into the Galilee Basin and explain to the 14,000 people who have lost their jobs because of the resistance between them and you people in relation to the coal industry. I could not guarantee their safety, and I mentioned that. They would have to come up and put a false moustache on with a wig. But the fact of the matter is that no-one has taken up my offer. It has been out there for 24 hours, so let me refresh it: anybody on that side of the chamber who wants to roll their swag—now, that might need a bit of explanation. That is a bed-roll that you use when there is not a five-star out the window of your Comcar. If you want to roll your swag and pick up a tin billy—now that is an old cream tin you use to boil water to make a cup of tea when there is no latte shop next to where your office is. If you want to come with me into the bush, I will take you. I will fund you, and we will go up bush and you can meet these people. You can tell them straight up. I will take you to meet the 12,000 people who are employed in the coal industry in the Bowen Basin, and you can meet them and personally tell them. I will take you into the public bar of the Black Nugget Hotel, but I am not going to wait with you. I would be frightened I might get a clip on the ear because they have mistaken me for some big hefty Labor fella. I will take you in there and you can tell the front bar at the Black Nugget Hotel that you are going to do everything within your power to take their jobs away.