Senator BERNARDI (South Australia) (15:07): I heard Senator McLucas say 'What a shame,' and I say what a shame it is for the Australian people that we had to sit through that empty rhetoric from Senator McLucas. This is a shadow minister, apparently, who has got a long history in this place and on medical issues, and the best that the shadow minister could do was launch an appeal to authority, one individual who has an opinion, and refer to them and say, 'That must be the definitive outcome.' It is a flawed logic, because there is none of the detail that is necessary in order to put forward a policy. We know where Senator McLucas has done her research: it is in the media. That is where all good research is done by the opposition, apparently. They cannot think for themselves. They cannot draw the conclusion that they supported a Medicare co-payment in a previous incarnation of the Labor government and now they do not. Like all snake-oil salesmen, those who peddle miraculous cures as they tour around the country, they say, 'Trust us. We'll give you the solution to your problems.' But, like all snake-oil salesmen, they are peddling falsehoods, they are peddling fraud. A great example of that was when Senator McLucas said, 'If you go to the doctor now, you're not going to be able to be bulk-billed.' What a crock! What an absolute load of codswallop, because there have been no changes to the Medicare payment, no changes to Medicare, that have passed through this chamber, so there is no way that there is any change to the current system. But Senator McLucas, for the benefit of the cameras and the Australian people, hammed it up and peddled her alarmist falsehoods and snake oil—the balm that is going to cure everything—in this chamber. If someone is prepared to peddle that sort of nonsense, the sort of nonsense that they use to cover up their six years of dysfunctional and hopeless government—the deception of the Australian people—and if they are prepared to do it now in opposition, they are simply not worthy of being considered as an alternative government. Let me remind you, Mr Deputy President, that serious measures need to be taken to redress a structural imbalance. The structural imbalance in the budget is the fact that the Labor Party ran up about $300 billion worth of debt in six years. They had us on course to have $667 billion worth of debt had they been re-elected. What do we have to show for it? We have nothing. Senator Abetz: Pink batts and burnt houses. Senator BERNARDI: That is right—thank you, Senator Abetz—I beg your pardon: we have burnt houses. We had porous borders. We had multibillion dollar school hall budget blow-outs. We had a range of dysfunction. We had $900 cheques sent to people who lived overseas or sent to those who lived on in eternal heaven—dead people received $900 cheques from the people opposite. This is an appalling act of hypocrisy from the people opposite, the previous government members, to say that they will not support measures that are intended to rejig our budget to put Australia back on a sustainable fiscal path. It is the ultimate betrayal of the Australian people. It is the same sort of rhetoric in which they maintained, as we heard from Senator Cash, that nothing could be done to stop the people smugglers; nothing could be done to stop the illegal boats from coming here; and nothing could be done to stop the people drowning at sea. You know what? Nothing could be done, because they were not prepared to do anything. They were the laziest bunch, the most hypocritical bunch of government members, that we have ever seen in the history of this country and now they stand up in sanctimonious piety and say, 'It's not our fault. We haven't done anything.' You have come up short for the Australian people. You have come up short in government and you are coming up even shorter in opposition. What you have done for this country is reduce politics to a laughing stock. You have reduced it to a joke, because no-one believes anything you say anymore. Senator Carol Brown interjecting— Senator BERNARDI: I notice that Senator Carol Brown is being very vocal over there, but not once during the term of the previous government did she have anything to say about stopping the boats and how important it was. She didn't say anything about the debt and deficit. The only thing that Senator Carol Brown had to say was how bad Senator Polley was while she was trying to get rid of her during preselection. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: You wish to raise a point of order. It will be a debating point, I am sure, but do you want to raise a point of order, Senator Carol Brown? Senator Carol Brown: I ask that Senator Bernardi withdraw that last statement, because it is not true. The DEPUTY PRESIDENT: It is a debating point, Senator Carol Brown. Order! There is no point of order.