Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Housing and Urban Development) Share this | Hansard source

The matters I raise are in response to the very matters that the minister himself has raised. What this minister has done is sought to canvass these issues far and wide, to slander his political opponents, to defame people and to make very crude and grossly inaccurate suggestions about the motivations of members of the opposition. He has raised these questions of nuclear power. He has raised allegations about what he claims to be Labor’s hostility to green coal. He has made a number of wild and woolly accusations, which he does on a regular basis, but he does not like it when someone comes back to him and says, ‘Minister, you are wasting the time of the Senate.’ You are grossly abusing your privileges as a minister of the Crown in this place. On behalf of this government, we now have a situation where four hours have proceeded on these issues and we have not moved one millimetre. We are going around and around with your puerile, offensive remarks, and you will be responded to blow for blow. That is a choice you make, but be under no illusions that, as far as we are concerned, we are not going to put up with these slanders.