Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Brian Harradine, the ex-senator from Tasmania, was always keen to point out as the father of the Senate that goodwill was the essential ingredient that marked this chamber and set it apart from the other place and, indeed, other parliaments. We have a good example now of how the government has forgotten that dictum.

What we are seeing of course is something that so often marks politics: that is, it is the conservatives who break the law, break the rules, break the precedent and break the honoured way in which tradition marks the way we progress in a democracy. I listened to Senator Ray talking about how the—