Tim Ayres

by us, the taxpayers, last week for their Henderson defence precinct.

And the industry minister, Tim Ayres, and defence industry minister, Pat Conroy, said this was a wonderful investment, the single biggest commitment yet made by Labor's $15 billion National Reconstruction Fund.

Now, you'd think the National Reconstruction Fund was for national reconstruction.

Mm-hmm.

They're all very close to Albanese.

You can add Tim Ayres, Murray Watt to that list as well, Penny Wong.

And Jim Chalmers, of course, comes from the right, the Queensland right.

So I think you've got to see it a bit in that factional term, the frustration that the right hasn't been able to prevail on the economic front.

So hang on, was that a pre-pre-summit workshop? A pre-Fiji, pre-cop shop, freebie cop flop? How many freebies do these bureaucrats like to stuff themselves silly on? But if you think they treat your tax dollars like a grab bag of chocolates and lollies, along comes Tim Moolaroo.

Sorry, Tim Ayres, a former union hack who likes to dress up and scare everyone silly by pretending to be a serious senator.

That made jokes about water lapping at Pacific leaders doors just a moment ago.

One of you, I can't remember which of you or Senator McDonald said that the local blokes were coming.

But I think, on balance, this is a project which will provide net benefits to the Australian people, despite the very disappointing cost blowouts and the huge challenges.

And what is one of the world's biggest engineering projects? You know, we're building a power station the size of Sydney Opera House, a kilometre underground, 40 kilometres worth of tonning through very difficult terrain.

When quizzed by One Nation Senator Malcolm Roberts about why Labor hadn't just shut the thing down when they realised what a multi-billion dollar blowout it would be, good old Senator Tim Uluru, sorry, Tim Ayres, did the classic Albanese government trick of simply blaming everybody else.

It started in a pretty bad place with an unfunded, uncosted, a project that had, as Mr. Barnes has said, and I think has been observed by experts, had a weakness in terms of its engineering design.

It's actually about buying what we can do here as well.

To that end, Jane, I think that the government's objective was ultimately... well articulated by Tim Ayres as he concluded his remarks at the National Innovation Policy Forum, and we'll just hear from him now.

The government's goal here is simple, to build an innovation system that is better at turning research into commercial outcomes and better at spreading those outcomes throughout our economy, to lift national productivity, and national innovation, and to build an Australia with more opportunity, more quality jobs, more national prosperity, and an economy that is stronger and more resilient in the uncertain times that lie ahead.

So Jane, there it is.

This will be out in the open where people can actually watch these cartoons, understand politics, understand what's happening here in this bubble in Canberra that affects so many of their lives.

That Tim Ayres, I wouldn't give him the time of day.

I see his vitriol on the floor of Parliament all the time.

And, you know, What they've got to say doesn't interest me and I couldn't care less to tell you the truth.

And this really, to me...

Anthony Albanese wants to turn down the temperature, but if you look at how some of his ministers speak in Parliament, particularly in the Senate, there's a lot of examples I can think to where Murray Watt, Tim Ayres, Katie Gallagher, and even sometimes Penny Wong are just so... harsh or mean to particular people over on the coalition side or even the crossbench.

It's actually interesting you raise the Helen Haynes thing.

There are two other crossbenchers in the Senate that Anthony Albanese and the government as a whole particularly do not like, and that is Fatma Payman, because she did the unspeakable sin of leaving the He