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

To the member opposite, you ask me questions—I am asking the questions here today, and they are ducking for cover. They cannot wait to get out of this place. But I want them to know that this matter is far from finished—for this reason: you cannot have a fair and honest democracy; you cannot be open and honest with the people of Australia if you hide either in the Prime Minister’s office or in any other minister’s office records of meeting with a non-voting sect which opposes military training, which has a derogatory attitude to women and which bans children from going to university, for goodness sake, and expect that nobody will be concerned about it. These are matters that the government says it stands for: democracy and a fair go for everybody.

The Prime Minister has railed against groups that discriminate against women, but not this group. Never has he mentioned the discrimination, for example, in the workplace where no woman in the Exclusive Brethren sect can hold a position senior to any male in that workplace. What sort of attitude is that in 2006 in this country? What other group would escape Prime Ministerial odium if they banned thousands of children from a right to a university education in this country? This Prime Minister is silent on the matter. Quid pro quo? That is for him to answer.