Member for Mallee, Anne Webster:

My question is to the Prime Minister. The Prime Minister told the bush summit last Friday and I quote, ‘I won’t BS people.’ But yesterday in the House he claimed he was the first Prime Minister in 40 years to visit Horsham in my electorate. Given former Prime Minister Tony Abbott visited Horsham to announce $1 million to open an oncology unit in 2015, wasn’t your answer just more BS? Prime Minister, isn’t your BS the real reason you were chased out of Ballarat by a convoy of tractors?

Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese:

They’re on the big picture today. Indeed, Tony Abbott was elected in 2013, but he didn’t make it to a 2-year anniversary. Depends when in 2015 ’cause he didn’t make it. I’m asked about the renewables issue. In that part of Victoria, and the bush summit. I can quote from someone’s first speech. ‘Mallee is perfectly positioned for renewables but the capacity of our existing grid infrastructure is making some promising options unviable. I look forward to working further to improve connectivity to the grid in Mallee.

Dr Webster welcomed announcements, she said, would benefit the Mallee electorate. These included to quote, ‘Up to $250 million to accelerate major transmission projects including VNI west, which will benefit Mallee in order to deliver reliable energy.’ Well, Mr Speaker, I’ll tell you what. The member used a term. I’ll tell you what the term is. The term for someone who, in their first speech in this Parliament, speaks about these projects and champions them, two backs it in, in 2020. Who went money is put in the budget, $250 million, puts out media releases saying, ‘Whoa, this is gonna be of great benefit.’ And then pretends somehow that they’re against the very project that was given the tick by the coalition government, funded by the coalition government, and then tells people, ‘Yeah, national parks no worries, get out there, bring along a noose to a public meeting’, as if that’s appropriate.