Topics: Malcolm Roberts’ comments, Farrer by-election result, Budget

CHRIS KENNY: National Leader in South Australia, Corey Bernardi. I wanted to go to Shadow Dave Sharma now, who of course is the Shadow Assistant Minister for Citizenship. He joins us from Canberra, ready for the budget there. Have you caught up with these Malcolm Roberts comments? Surely it's not too hard just to say you rule this out. There is simply no evidence. To leave it hanging there is offensive in my view.

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DAVE SHARMA: It's grotesque, Chris. I don't see how he can— I'm appalled that he even entertained that very idea and didn't shut the door on it straight away. And what he effectively did towards the end is dog whistle at it. I mean, I think it's sickening and disgusting to suggest that someone engineered this harm to their own community. I mean, I presume the perpetrators of the false flag operation are Israel or the Jewish community or the security state or something. The idea that anyone willingly did this to further some other agenda, I think, is sickening and grotesque. And I think it shows you, frankly, Chris, that One Nation's got a long way to go before they should be taken as a serious political force. I don't discount the success they had. Farrer over the weekend. But that, with that sort of success comes a level of responsibility which they have been able to evade up until this point.

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CHRIS KENNY: Well, they had a big win. They've taken it from the Liberals. They're really coming for the Coalition now around the country. Reports that we'll go to later with Alex Antic suggesting that the moderate wing of the Liberal Party, some in there could be looking at a breakaway party. It seems the Liberals are talking about themselves all over again.

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, I haven't heard of those reports. I haven't heard any discussions like that. I think everyone in the Liberal Party that I've been speaking to wants us to work together to be a competitive political force once again. We don't want to fragment the party any further. I don't think that's our solution. Our solution is to re-establish the broad church that has always been at the heart of the Liberal Party's electoral success.

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CHRIS KENNY: And is that going to happen with greater urgency and clarity, you think, in the wake of Farrer?

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DAVE SHARMA: Look, I think we will see, the budget reply speech on Thursday evening is the chance for the leader, Angus Taylor, and the economic team to start laying out an alternative economic vision for Australia. And I think, that is urgent and that is compelling. The Australian economy is in terrible shape. Labor's answer is only to tax more and to spend more. And we need to be giving people an alternative governing hypothesis, if you like. I don't think One Nation can give Australians that. They are, up until this point, a party of protest, channelling people's rage and grievance, and I think that's legitimate. I don't discount that. But it's our job as a party of government, historically and prospectively, to be putting together a plan that Australians can get behind. And I think we will start to do that on Thursday evening.

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CHRIS KENNY: But wasn't that the problem in the Farrer by-election? Instead of talking about the cost of living and how the Liberals could fight back against Labor's economic mismanagement, you were busy arguing with One Nation.

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DAVE SHARMA: I don't think that— look, I don't think that helps, no. And look, Labor wasn't in the field there, of course, which makes it harder. I mean, I think they— it was politically clever but a cynical thing to do, I think, to not run a candidate there, but because I think they knew that they would have borne some of this sort of blowback and anger in the Australian electorate otherwise. But look, undoubtedly, there were mistakes made in the campaign and we could have run a better campaign. But what we've got to focus on now is the tests and challenges ahead for us.

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CHRIS KENNY: Great stuff, Dave. Thanks for joining us. Dave Sharma there live in Canberra. He's spot on. It was pathetic of Labor not to run, not to even front up to voters, not to give them that option.

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[ENDS]