Anika Wells (Lilley, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

We've seen new lows from the government this week as the Queensland LNP continue their live auditions for the upcoming top-of-the-ticket Senate stoush in Queensland by competing to see who can use a national platform to be the most reprehensible character. LNP Senator Stoker has accused the Queensland Premier of being 'the knee on the throat of businesses, stopping them from breathing'. Who uses the words of a dying man to make a political point! A barrister with a first-class law degree sitting among those opposite did. In just the same way, who gave 23 votes to Pauline Hanson's 'it's OK to be white' white supremacist motion in the Senate? Those opposite did. And who said, 'it's a free country', when their base thronged the streets to protest 5G but said, 'let's throw the book at them', when ordinary Australians marched in the streets because black lives matter—because people's lives actually matter? Those opposite did. How draining that First Nations peoples have to expend their energy to call their leaders to account on racism, even this week. How appalling that we have to wring a conditional apology out of those opposite just so we can restore a bit of decency around here and get on with our actual job, which is amplifying the voices of the disenfranchised in our own country. The PM must answer the question of whether he too supports the sentiments of this senator. If not, what is he going to do to stop the rot in his own party room?