Julia Gillard (Lalor, Australian Labor Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

I see that the Leader of the Opposition is continuing to pursue the stunt he started yesterday. National leadership requires you to deliver policies for the nation's future that are of some complexity. Certainly, carbon pricing is a complex policy, but it is in the nation's interest and I will pursue that policy. Unfortunately for the Leader of the Opposition, he is not only incapable of generating an idea for the nation's future, he is not only incapable of delivering a complex reform; he has actually proved incapable, over the last 24 hours, of pulling a stunt. He cannot even competently pull a stunt. He was out there saying he was going to have a simultaneous vote in the House of Representatives and the Senate at 10 am yesterday. No-one obviously told him that that was not possible because parliament was not sitting at that time; the House was not sitting. He did not go to his shadow cabinet, because presumably there may have been someone there with the wit to say that this was a particularly dumb stunt. Perhaps more important than any other point, this would cost taxpayers $80 million and the Leader of the Opposition is on the record as saying that he would not abide by the result in any event—$80 million to be wasted and he would not even abide by the result. I think Australians would be more concerned—

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