Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Special Minister of State) Share this | Hansard source

Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President, you cannot have it both ways: it is either an issue or it is not. I cannot believe that the Greens would not support this select committee, because they have also been talking about housing affordability. If they sit in here and vote against this, as they did in the test before in relation to industrial relations, then it only proves again that—through you, Mr Acting Deputy President—you are one and the same: the Australian Greens and the Australian Labor Party are one and the same. Through you, Mr Acting Deputy President to Senator Siewert, until you have the guts to cut yourselves away from the Australian Labor Party and start putting in place the sorts of processes you have been complaining about in this place, then you are also completely and utterly hypocritical. You are hypocrites.

I want to turn to the state governments. I think Senator Bartlett was absolutely right when he said that there may well be matters that need to be looked at in relation to the state governments. Well, they are—absolutely.