Page 5618 - Week 15 - Wednesday, 9 December 2009
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Ministerial responsibilities
MR HARGREAVES (Brindabella) (6.45): This is the one time in your life, Mr Doszpot, that you are not in the top spot; that is moi. You got to be in second top spot. I did not actually come down here to show off the glorious shirt that I have got, but it is a beauty, isn’t it, as my wife gave it to me.
I was sitting there listening with one ear to the TV, because I could hear the reticulation—you cannot even spell “reticulation”, but I was listening to it—and also talking to a constituent, so I apologise for not being here, particularly to my colleagues Ms Porter and Ms Burch. But I heard what I could only describe as scratchings. There were scratchings on the ladder of hypocrisy.
Mr Doszpot: By Joy?
MR HARGREAVES: No, not at all—by, in fact, the Leader of the Opposition, the person who looketh over his shoulder at the pole dancer in the back row. What we are seeing here, Mr Speaker, is one of the most despicable, low-life, scumbag attitudes ever perpetrated in this place by someone who does not come to work very often. The height of hypocrisy knows no bounds.
Mr Coe: This is why we love you, John.
MR HARGREAVES: Somebody ought to think seriously when criticising somebody’s performance: do I sit in a glasshouse? You would if you had the IQ of a tomato, wouldn’t you? You would sit in a glasshouse.
Mr Coe: You’re a liability, John.
MR HARGREAVES: This bloke across the chamber, Mr Speaker, does not have the right to come down here thinking that he can just put these throwaway lines out: “Oh, I think you ought to consider what’s been happening for the last 40 days.” Talk about 40 days and 40 nights! That bloke needs a complete ark to get himself out of the bloody trouble he gets himself into. He does absolutely nothing—and here comes the cavalry. I thought he was an infantry bloke but he is not; he is cavalry. He was in the Crimean War, this bloke.
Mr Hanson: It’s not rating season. There’s nothing on tellie, and I saw this going on.
MR HARGREAVES: I reckon these bloody acolytes, these followers of—a bishop? No, the Abbott. These followers of the Abbott have the same destiny. Mr Seselja, the Leader of the Opposition, will actually be what Tony Abbott describes himself at the next election—political roadkill. That is what this guy is going to be—political roadkill. And why is that? It is because the heights of hypocrisy that this bloke goes to know no bounds. He is going to be an Olympic sport before he dies, this bloke. Talk about dwarf throwing; this guy is going to be straight over the bar—of hypocrisy. He ought to learn about the performance standards. This guy has been sitting in that chair, and what has he achieved? Absolutely nothing.
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