Malcolm Turnbull (Wentworth, Liberal Party, Prime Minister) Share this | Hansard source

The Leader of the Opposition has no regard for the facts, no regard for the record and no regard for consistency, and he attempts to mischaracterise, to caricature, anybody that stands in his way of inventing his Shortenian reality, which has no reality and no connection to the real world.

The fact of the matter is this: we have committees in this parliament to consider important issues of public interest, and they do their work—and the Human Rights Committee will do its work. If the Leader of the Opposition wants to go down some road of saying someone believes something could be changed or reformed about the Racial Discrimination Act and those provisions, there will be a lot of racists there, I would say. It will include the Australian Law Reform Commission. They have made suggestions for changes. It will even include Professor Triggs, who has said that there should be changes made and has said that she has been asking for them for years. Well, fair enough. She has welcomed the committee's establishment. Let the committee do its work. We will have a calm, reasoned discussion, and we will see what consensus emerges. I am not interested in gesture politics. I am not interested in misrepresenting the facts. The Leader of the Opposition constantly misleads. We will build consensus through that committee, and we will let it do its work.

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