Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The issues the Australian people are concerned about include jobs; they're concerned about the cost of living; they are concerned about the future for their children. These are the issues that engage the minds and concerns of the Australian people. But yet here today we have the alternative government, yet again devoid of any policy platform, seeking to pick on individual new senators. Last week, it was about two sentences out of Senator Bragg's first speech that the Labor Party sought to take note of as the big issue of the day. Today, it is relative newcomer, Senator Amanda Stoker, for going to a conference, as though that should excite the interest of the national parliament. And, just in case those listening are wondering about this conference, a person who was described by John Howard as the most decent man he had ever come across in politics, former Deputy Prime Minister, John Anderson, will be attending that conference. Just keep that in mind. And the person Senator Wong and Senator Keneally went to the barricades on to try to make sure that he became Prime Minister, Mark Latham—thankfully they failed—is also appearing at this conference. That's the former Labor leader, as indeed is Warren Mundine, a former national president of the ALP.

So, I am starting to take the side of Senator Wong and Senator Keneally and ask Senator Stoker what on earth she is doing rubbing shoulders with these former Labor people! But the reality is, as Senator James Paterson has indicated, that this is an issue not about with whom one shares a stage but about what one personally believes. Good heavens above: I've even appeared on The Drum! I've even had GetUp! people in my office! But I can tell you, I didn't agree with GetUp! and didn't agree with all the panellists who were interjecting on me because I was, as is always the wont on The Drum, the lone voice. I even appear on Q&A from time to time! Does that mean I agree with the views and values expressed by other people on the panel? Of course not. That is where the intellectual bankruptcy to which my good friend and colleague Senator James Paterson referred is so absolutely rife in this debate. Indeed, other people who will be appearing at this conference include Nick Cater, from the Menzies Research Centre; Jacinta Price, a well-known Indigenous councillor and advocate; Janet Albrechtsen—and the list goes on.

But let's be very clear here: the Labor Party's affected outrage today is because they have no policy issues to talk about, and in their eagerness to try to find something to talk about today they overlook the fact that in their own midst they have the John Setkas, they have the Luke Colliers, and that one former Labor senator in this place spent over 60 questions trying to defend the indefensible, and the Hansard records—I won't go through all the antecedents of one Mr Collier or indeed Mr Setka and the misogynist, ugly things they said to female enforcement officers in the workplace—deathly silence! There is deathly silence from the Labor Party, especially from the leader and deputy leader of the Labor Party in this place—not a word of criticism. Are they willing to condemn that sort of behaviour? Of course they're not.

So, Mr President, as you resume the chair, I indicate for anybody who might have listened in to the speeches of the Labor Party's leader and deputy leader in this place: their contributions were laced with hypocrisy, duplicity and a standard they would never apply to themselves. Why do they do it? Because they are devoid of policies and have no platform to engage the Australian people, so they engage in this politics of personality rather than politics of policy.