Anthony Albanese (Grayndler, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the House) Share this | Hansard source

We see hysteria from those opposite that yesterday moved for the suspension of standing and sessional orders and then gagged the right of the government to respond to their two speakers. Today they were heard in silence, but we hear the interjections throughout my contribution. It is a fact that we ensured that every single MP who was on the speaking list got to make a contribution to this debate. Some 126 members of this House participated, including 68 members of the coalition. Of all of their front bench—and you have to be pretty bad not to make their front bench—there was only one, the member for Wentworth, who did not speak and he chose not to make a contribution.

We had 40 hours of debate over 30 calendar days. How does that compare? For Work Choices, 22 hours over eight days and we went to war in Iraq on the basis of under 30 hours of debate. The fact is that we took this seriously. We put in a process from which to reach certainty and in spite of the hysterical actions of those opposite it went through. Their actions included denying pairs to a person with a child on the way until they were embarrassed into changing their minds and bringing back people from the United Nations and NATO in order not to make a difference. The only member who did not get the right to participate fully was the member for Indi and that was her own responsibility due to her outrageous behaviour last night, which was consistent with her behaviour both in the House and outside the House. It was consistent with the sort of behaviour that comes from gathering with the sorts of people we saw in the gallery today. They were outside my electorate office engaging in the sort of debate that does no credit to the democratic process.

Churchill said that Russia was 'a riddle, wrapped in a mystery, inside an enigma'. Tony Abbott's climate change negativity is hysteria wrapped in an overstatement inside an exaggeration.

See this speech in context