Tony Windsor (New England, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

If that same group of people in the Senate who supported that amendment and lauded it—Senator Williams, Senator Barnaby Joyce and many of the others said it was a great amendment that Senator Brown was introducing into the Senate—then suddenly, on Wednesday night, find that it is not a great amendment, that they have made a mistake, then one would have to consider the word ‘idiot’ as being an apt description of their capacity to intellectually engage with five lines. In consultation with Mitch Hooke and others and the member for Groom, they have decided that there is a way out of this: ‘If we remove the term ‘mining’ and not have exploration licences, there is a way through this that can save the member for Parkes and others’ necks by confusing the issue.’ But, as I said earlier, all that has done is reinstate the very thing the member for Parkes just spoke against, the state based planning process, which is a problem, particularly when we have just initiated a basin planning process for the Murray-Darling system, we are going to do substantial water audits, both in quality and quantity, and we do not know the impacts of these interconnectivity issues.

The member for Groom took offence at a couple of things I said. Senator Barnaby Joyce is on the public record as saying they were leaned on by the Minerals Council—that is his statement. For the member for Groom to jump up and down and say this is a tragedy—

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