James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

His legacy. Everybody would come together. Like a Roman Caesar being crowned, he would be the one true ruler of this continent. Sadly, he forgot to think about what the Australian people might think of his quite bonkers plan to divide Australians on the basis of race, and they, sensibly, voted no to it.

Like Ozymandias—from Tennyson, I think it was, Senator Scarr—in terms of 'look down and despair', we have a Prime Minister who bet everything on the Voice getting up. And when he woke up on 15 October with a political hangover, there was no plan B. There was no plan C, D, E, F or G. There was no other plan. What's clearly happened is that they've had to go to some focus groups. They've gotten Labor Party secretariats to do some focus groups to find out: What does middle Australia think? What are they thinking about? Three words have come in—three words that were not mentioned before 14 October—cost of living. You didn't need to spend money on focus groups. You didn't need to waste half a billion dollars on a referendum. The No. 1 issue since Labor has come to power has been the cost of living, because we've had 12 interest rate rises.

We have high inflation and we do not have real wages growth in this country. This is happening under a Labor government who promised to make life better for people. But my question and my challenge to anyone who is listening to this today is: do you feel better off today than you did 18 months ago? You don't. Do you feel safer today than 18 months ago, knowing that this Labor government has released murderers, rapists, sex offenders and a contract killer out into the streets of this country? And the question people will be asking—