Dan Tehan (Wannon, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

So are you going to be supporting our motion then?

Mr Fitzgibbon interjecting—

You are going to be supporting our motion. There we go. We can tick the member for Hunter as a vote on our side. That is very good. I am glad you are a man of principle and you are going to stand beside us, because that quote really sums up why we are here tonight.

I commend the member for Mayo for moving this motion. I must say I smiled to myself when the member for Melbourne decided to use a cricket analogy, because the member for Mayo—I do not know whether or not people know—was quite a handy cricketer in his day, and I am sure he put a few full tosses to the boundary. But, when the member for Melbourne said it was like being served up a full toss, I do not think he quite had the analogy right. For the member for Melbourne, it is more like ball tampering or maybe match-fixing, because that is what this is all about. This is about the Gillard government protecting the Greens, protecting their soul mates, protecting the party that they formed government with for this parliament. That is what this motion is all about.

The member for Hunter can come in and he can try and throw a few smokescreens here and there, but he belled the cat. If the taxpayers are funding the costings of minor parties, they should be able to access the results. Why can't we access the results? It is very interesting. I did a little bit of research. Before the last election, Bob Brown, as Leader of the Australian Greens, put out a Greens policy initiative called 'Integrity and Transparency in Politics legislative package'. So the Australian Greens believe that integrity, accountability and openness in politics are vital to a healthy democracy. This was Bob Brown before the last election. So I asked myself, 'What's happened?' And then I thought, 'Maybe it's the change of leadership. With a change of leadership, Bob's disappeared and we've got a new Greens leader. Maybe there's been a change of policy approach. Or maybe it is another example of, "We'll say one thing before the election and we'll do another thing afterwards."' I think that is probably more likely, because, as we have seen, the Greens have been very good at influencing this Labor government, getting them to say one thing before the last election and do another thing after. What we are seeing here is the belling of the cat when it comes to the influence that the Greens have over the Labor Party.

The Labor Party can be out saying, 'We need to distance ourselves from the Greens,' starting false wars with the Greens, but the Australian people will not fall for it. They have seen it when it comes to the carbon tax. They have seen it—as the member who spoke before me on this side argued—with the illegal logging bill and the way the risks of that were distorted. It was sent back and tampered with and the result that the Greens wanted came out. They got their way with that piece of legislation. It is about time the Greens got the focus on them that they deserve. It is about time the blowtorch was applied to them. And it is about time the Labor Party showed that it really wants to distance itself from the Greens. If you want to do that, do not preference them in 50 seats, like you did at the last election. (Time expired)

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