Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I do have a question, Senator Watt, that relates to the ministerial statement: why doesn't the Prime Minister have any faith in the other 22 Labor senators to have made any of the rest of them ministers? On a serious point—it's all serious, but this is particularly serious—because there are only four ministers and the Prime Minister chose to put the foreign minister and the trade minister in the Senate, we've now had the unfortunate situation where Senator Farrell as trade minister has had to return early from China, rather than see out the mission he was undertaking. To finish the farce of these arrangements, Senator Farrell, who was just in China, is sworn to the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade portfolio but is apparently not the minister representing the Minister for Foreign Affairs. So, not only does Mr Albanese not seem to trust any of the 22 other Labor senators to sit as ministers, but—Don, why doesn't Penny trust you with Foreign Affairs?

Honourable senators interjecting—