Tim Ayres (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Trade) Share this | Hansard source

Senator McKim says that we voted for it. In our view, the responsibility of a party of government is to make sure that we supply the best possible position in the national interest. We did that in opposition. That's why, in the last term of government, we voted for propositions in here and in the House of Representatives in relation to the government's response to COVID and to a series of other issues that we would not have designed ourselves. We see government not as being about T-shirts, memes, slogans, feelings and a post-truth approach to these issues but as actually being about making sure that we're acting in the national interest.

You've made a lot of noise, Senator McKim, and achieved very little on these questions. On this question—