REMARKS AT GOVERNMENT HOUSE: swearing in as Deputy Prime Minister

 

It is an incredible honour be sworn in once more as Deputy Prime Minister of Australia and Minister for Agriculture and Water Resources. I understand how great the weight is of holding such an office and what an incredible bestowment it is by the Australian people to give you the chance to once more serve our nation in such a formative way.

 

What I would like to say at the outset is that I would like to thank the people of New England for their tolerance and forbearance through the processes of the election, and also show my incredible gratitude for the overwhelming endorsement that we received. I think New England is now the safest seat in Parliament and it didn't start that way.

 

But, of course, there is one thing I would like to bring up. I am disgusted with the Australian Labor Party. I am disgusted with a party that would refuse my capacity to speak in the Parliament, while at the same time they obviously were fully aware of people within their own side who were in exactly the same predicament.

 

Hear, hear.

 

I am disgusted at the leadership of the Labor Party, who even after seeing the decision in the High Court where it is black and white, still made it a resolve of theirs to hide, to obfuscate and treat us all as fools. I am surprised they would think people are so foolish that they would fall for the cynical hypocrisy they have delivered to the Australian people.

 

I think Mr Shorten, to be quite frank, and the Leader of Opposition Business and Member for Watson, Tony Burke have an awful lot of questions to answer because they have taken the whole Australian people and the Parliament as a farce, as they went through this ridiculous, this ridiculous sort of peculiar game where they said, "Oh, well, we have got nothing to answer for. Our vetting process is watertight. There is nothing to see here." Until we actually got the truth out of them.

 

I believe that of course it would have to have had some effect if everybody who had a question to ask went before the High Court at the same time. If nothing else, it would have avoided the inconvenience to the Australian people of having multiple by-elections. We could have had it all on one Super Saturday.

 

So it’s a question Mr Shorten: Do you honestly believe the Australian people are so stupid that time and time again you could play this ridiculous hypocritical game and get away with it?

 

No, they aren't, Mr Shorten. They are so awake to you and I saw that through the New England campaign. They are awake to you and have an absolute cynicism about the process and the contempt with which you treat the Australian people. Even the fact now with Senator Sam Dastyari - is he still in the show?

 

Still sitting there, mate.

 

Still there. The way you are treating them. So, to Mr Shorten, to the Labor Party, to those being led around by the nose by the Labor Party, who actually took them on good faith to what they told you. I think now is the time that you should truly hold the Labor Party under the tutelage of Mr Bill Shorten well and truly to account.

 

(ENDS)