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

If you had heard it you wouldn't have thought there was anything improper about it, as Senator Farrell clearly didn't. I can't understand the Labor Party sometimes.

Here we on this side are asking serious policy questions. I was delighted to be able to ask the Minister for Resources and Northern Australia, Senator Canavan, about the wonderful announcement today that Adani is building a new railway line in North Queensland and Central Queensland, joining the port of Abbot Point to the Carmichael mines. That will mean those Carmichael mines can go ahead with development, with creating real jobs for Central and North Queenslanders. It's an announcement today that has absolutely brightened my heart, and I might go and get one of my favourite wines, the Farrell red wine, to celebrate such a wonderful announcement.

But what did we get from the Labor Party? This is why I doubted Senator Farrell's sanity, in a nice way. He's accusing us of talking about ourselves and not about policy issues for the people of Australia. Every question today from members of the Labor Party was about parliamentarians, about the internal workings of the Liberal Party. Can I tell people: not many people on this side of the parliament are too interested in that and, I can assure you, neither is any other Australian. They are interested in things like real jobs for Australians that the Adani mines will bring. They're interested in the NBN rollout, new black spots and, as Senator McKenzie so eloquently announced, the many initiatives happening in rural and regional Australia.

But what did the Labor Party do? They talked about politicians. There was not one question about jobs; not one question about the economy; not one question about the disadvantaged in our community; not one question about infrastructure, about development, about the economy or about reducing Labor's debt; and not one question about the more than one million jobs that have been created since the Liberal-National government has been in power. These are all the issues that Australians are interested in, and the Labor Party, under their current leadership, took their whole hour to ask about internal party matters.

That's why Mr Shorten is so detested by the Australian public. As was said during question time, Mr Morrison has been in the job only a couple of weeks, but already he leads Mr Shorten in the opinion polls as the better Prime Minister. And it's no wonder, when he leads the 'rarble'—to quote a Labor Party senator—that you see over on the other side of this chamber. They're not a group of senators interested in Australians, interested in policy issues, interested in economic issues, interested in the disadvantaged—interested in the things that Australians are interested in. All the Labor Party seem to be interested in here is internal politics. I don't know why they didn't ask a question about Senator Cameron and former Minister Obeid, who was in Senator Keneally's cabinet, and the former minister the bad Ian Macdonald—