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

The member opposite says, ‘Disgraceful.’ I agree. It is a disgraceful process that is being undertaken here. Of course this legislation should be going to a committee, and of course that committee should be going to the Northern Territory to inform itself. This government says to the Indigenous people and, indeed, all the people of the Territory: ‘Come to Canberra on Friday or miss out.’

We are going to have a one-day sham of a committee system on Friday and the government says, ‘Come here or you miss out.’ That is the Prime Minister’s attitude towards the rest of Australia. He says: ‘I set the rules. You fit in or you miss out.’ So we have the exclusion of all Australians from their right to feed into this process here on Capital Hill. The Greens will not accept that. We are not going to accept the presumption by this government that it is the arbiter of all ideas and nobody else in this country counts. It is desperation politics by a government that is heading for a shipwreck.

What is the opposition going to do about this? Nothing. Not a thing. It is an opposition in name only. This process is wrong. This process is corrupting this parliament. I am talking here about the process, not the outcome. We have yet to deal with this before it gets guillotined here in the coming week or so. I am talking about this process. This is Prime Minister Howard’s government corrupting proper democratic process, which means we must be informed. When you are dealing with people whose lives, future and culture are at stake here then you get informed.