Rob Mitchell (McEwen, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I have listened to all the babble from those opposite, particularly the member for Durack, who spent 10 minutes not facing up to any facts or realities but just coming up with more three-word slogans, more drivel, more rubbish. He wants to blame the messenger for this.

We should sit down and have a mature conversation—I know it is difficult for those opposite—and look at why this trade was suspended. It was suspended because of cruelty to animals. Everyone who has seen that footage knows that that cruelty was appalling. The question I would like to ask those opposite, as they sit there with their empty blank faces, is: how long did Senator Coonan have that video footage? She never came out and said that she had it. Has she been talking to you about it? Did she say to you that she was in possession of that video footage long before it came on the ABC? No. That is the hypocrisy of what goes on opposite. You sit there and want to blame the people who brought the footage to everyone's attention.

When I was working at DPI in Victoria we went to markets and we saw cruelty here in Australian. The member for Dawson wants to blame religion; he says that is the problem. That is just the sort of absolutely appalling thing that you would expect from such a barbaric person as he is.

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