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

The member for Denison and I agree on this fundamental point that the member for New England is entitled to sit in this House. He is a member of parliament. As long as he is a member of parliament, he is entitled to be a minister of state under the Constitution. We acknowledge the advice from the member for Denison, but the fact of the matter is this: the member for New England is entitled to sit in this House. The reference to the High Court was not done for any reason other than to give the court the opportunity to clarify this area of the law which has been the subject of so much controversy recently.

I agree with the member for Denison when he says we should be focusing on the issues of vital importance to Australians. That is why this motion should not be supported. Just in the last six weeks, this is what the government have been doing to keep Australians safe. We have gone to the G20 and secured the support of the 20 leading economies to take action to counter terrorism right across the world, to ensure that the internet is not used to promote terrorism and to spread extremism and to ensure the big tech companies and social media companies cooperate with governments to ensure that we can track down and defeat those terrorists. And we've seen—

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