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

Labor's Canberra Voice is risky, unknown, going to be permanent and going to be divisive. More dangerously, it's going to lead to a treaty. The Prime Minister of this country has talked about voice, truth and treaty 34 times. He's even worn a T-shirt with those words on it. On any questions put to him by the media this week, he has obfuscated and he has avoided the truth. He wants to yap about anything else but he's not answering questions about the Voice. He's not answering questions about the treaty. More concerningly for Australians, he's not talking about cost of living. He's not talking about the No. 1 issue facing Australians at the moment, and that is cost of living.

We have a prime minister who is stuck in this airified Canberra bubble, who has not yet gone to a flood that devastated regional Queensland, who has not deigned to get out of his big expensive car and go and visit my fellow Queenslanders—no, he won't do that. He won't talk about cost of living. He won't come to Queensland and speak to Queenslanders who are being smashed by mortgage rates, who are being smashed by inflation, who are being smashed by a criminal justice system run by a state Labor government. Fifty cars a day are being stolen in Queensland. People in Townsville get the trifecta—their car stolen, their home robbed and beaten up in their home—under a Labor government. But this Prime Minister doesn't talk about the issues impacting upon Australians. He wants to divide us by trying to bring in a mechanism that will divide us on race. It'll be risky, and then he wants to bring in a treaty. Shame on you, Prime Minister. (Time expired)