Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—We have serious concerns with this. Why? First of all, this is a wedging motion. Reference to the member for New England and the consequence of that being in this motion means that it is more of a political statement, with political purpose, and that would go beyond their desire to actually achieve something here. This was foisted upon us without any chance of proper lobbying and proper consultation. This is an extremely important issue. We regard it as having the utmost importance. But we do not want to play this political game where people run into the chamber on something that there is obviously a wealth of concern about and then play wedging politics over a couple of days.

Also, it talks about Caroona, as if Caroona in the Liverpool Plains is extremely important. But it is not the only important place. There are other parts of our nation that have the same concerns, which also deserve to be considered in motions such as these. So this issue is being taken to a form of base politics. This is an issue where we are trying as best we can on both sides of this chamber—from the Labor Party to the Liberal Party to the National Party—to collect a group of people to go forward and achieve something and deliver something back. This has been turned into a wedging issue, taken to a very base form, which is detracting from the people who feel so exposed at this point in time on this issue. I think it is improper of the Greens to start playing with the lives of the people at Caroona and on the Haystack Plain without being genuine and authentic in the way that they would go about collecting support. It takes 39 votes in this chamber to get something through, not five.