These quotes come from Daniel Hurst's article published online in The Age and the SMH where he has reported on Paul Howes and his closing speech at the AWU Conference on the Gold Coast.

''We know what type of man Tony Abbott is. We know what type of man Eric Abetz is. We know what kind of joker Joe Hockey is. Hell, we even know who Barnaby Joyce is even if he doesn't know it himself.''

Mr Howes ridiculed the image of Senator Joyce as an average Australian, saying: ''He's a guy who goes on cruise ship holidays with Gina Rinehart. He's a guy who writes letters to Gina Rinehart's children begging them to stop litigation against their mother.''

Mr Howes labelled Mr Abbott as ''the most inconsistent so-called conviction politician that this nation has ever seen'', pointing to contradictory statements over climate change and WorkChoices.

He said Mr Abbott was only consistent on ''extreme social conservative'' positions on reproductive rights.

''It's hard to actually call Tony Abbott a conservative because he's so extreme; because he's so brash; because he resorts to the politics of smear and innuendo so much. That's not conservative; that's extreme. And when nations have extremist politicians and when extremists gain power it's a very, very scary thing.''

But after launching the attacks, Mr Howes bemoaned how politics had become ''so nasty, so personal''.

''I do despair sometimes at the level of political discourse in this country,'' he said.

Mr Howes later denied he was being hypocritical, saying: ''I'm not in Parliament . . . I think it's right to call a spade a spade.''