Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Minister for Resources and Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

The answer to that is no. We are proud at the federal party level that we have a separate party room here in Canberra. We have achieved great results for regional Australia. We do have a policy for Central Queensland—to build Rookwood Weir and to create jobs in the Galilee Basin—unlike the Labor Party, who have deserted the interests of Central Queensland. We will be proudly standing by our record at the federal election as Nationals.

I think why those on the other side take a unique and special interest in the National Party in this place is because they're jealous; they're just a little bit jealous. They all want to be secret Nats at heart. They would all love the freedom that my colleagues have to bark and voice their opinion. But these guys are little kelpies tied to their Labor ute! When the Labor ute moves away, the little kelpies have to run along—they can't bark; they are muzzled; they can't say anything. They all want to be over here. It's unfortunate you can't be, Senator Watt. But we're always willing to take applications from people who have seen the light, who would like to stand up and actually have an independent voice for those in regional Queensland.

I am proud about the fact that we do fight for those who don't necessarily have a loud voice in this place. We have 226 people across this chamber and the other place, and there's not many of us who come from regional Australia. All of us here do. We're a little corner and we have to fight from that corner. We fight for the regions. That's why we're passionate about delivering dams. It's why we're passionate about building new industries in regional Australia. It's why we're passionate about supporting those wealth-producing industries of our nation like our mining sector, our agricultural sector, our forestry sector and our fishing sector. We will stand up for these people and we'll continue to do so as long as we're here.