I am absolutely amazed at the fascination that people on the other side have with the Prime Minister's diary. If you are keen to find out what is in the diary of the Prime Minister or those of the members of the cabinet, the other members and all of us-we have diaries as well-we are more than happy to give you a look at them. It is really an easy thing to do to just share that. To have the whole of this period focused on what is happening with whose diary and when seems to me to be an interesting policy process. We have seen the attempt to link the diary to policy-and I admire that. To link the diary to policy is a good effort. However, what we all know in this place and what those of us who have been working in this area for a long time know is that consistently over many years in state politics and in federal politics people have an ongoing discussion about the way to determine a strategy and a campaign. There has been this process to work this out, and that has always been-certainly from the Queensland perspective-to look at what the issues are in a state election and then focus in on them. I have looked at what has been going on-even though I do not have an intimate knowledge, as I know my colleague Senator Sterle has-and I have seen what issues have been raised in the state election in WA. People are looking at their own issues. They are looking at the budget. They are looking at job cuts. They are looking at transport. These are all things that are effective and needed in the state arena. The state strategy campaigner said: 'We are wanting to make it clear to the people of Western Australia that we are running in a state election. We are putting up our candidates. We are putting up our people. And we are focusing in on the state election in WA.' It is a process that happens all the time.
It is a noble attempt by the people on the other side to link the WA election to the diaries of our cabinet ministers-for example, the fact that Minister Shorten, at the invitation of the WA union, went into WA in a fly-in fly-out visit. It is unheard of for a minister to go to a meeting and then fly out to another meeting! It is newsworthy, and I hope that the media will look at how many times in the final period before a state election-when was the last election?-people flew into a meeting, attended the meeting and then flew away! That is a big story; we must have some kind of review to see how often it happens!
I always acknowledge the extraordinary amount of travel time that members from Western Australia have to put in just to do their job; I know that one of the major issues our members from Western Australian have is the amount of time they have to spend on planes. All too often, because of the demands on their time, they have to fly in and out on what we lovingly call in Queensland 'the red-eye'. I often see people staggering off the plane having just completed the long journey from WA.
Those opposite are fascinated with diaries and checking out where cabinet members are going to be next. In question time we had a question focusing on-and concerned about-why the Prime Minister had been in a New South Wales venue. Are we now going to say that the New South Wales people have a special double interest in whether they invite members of cabinet to their areas? The people on the other side are attempting purely to make a political point that they believe is going to help in some way their side in the WA election.
It always interests me that, every time there is a state election, you find LNP senators making speeches in the adjournment debate and saying a range of things about the evils of the Labor people in their state. It seems that they think that doing so will have an impact on the result of the election; I do not believe that it will. A media statement came out, purporting to be from the leader of the Labor Party in WA, in which a decision is made on the way that things are operating in the WA state election. Those opposite should focus on the state and on the state election. They are the important issues.
