Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Polley interjects and says ‘voting against it’. No, that depends on the state of the legislation. The guarantee that the Australian Greens gave was that, if all these things were to be done, they would then support the legislation. I indicate in relation to our approach to discussions that we thought our greenfields amendments were very good, but the government’s greenfields amendments are even better, so I flag that we will be withdrawing ours and voting for the government’s. If you had approached this in a sensible manner you would have not only had this dialogue with the extreme Greens and Senators Xenophon and Fielding but would have engaged the opposition. And—who knows—if Ms Gillard had been willing to sit down with Mr Keenan, even on the discrete area of the greenfields agreements, we might have got an even better set of amendments than the government’s. We are willing to go through these amendments one by one, look at them and vote upon them on their merits. The reason I picked on the greenfields amendments is that that is one area that has already come to mind where we and the government were of a like mind, but Ms Gillard, because she is so high and mighty, was unwilling to negotiate or deal with the opposition in any way, shape or form. It reflects very badly on her as a minister and, as deputy leader of the government, it reflects very badly on the ham-fisted approach that the government is taking to this legislation.

In relation to the proposed amendments—and I am straying into the amendments, but just to get some broad clarification—the minister is suggesting a separate right of entry regime and a separate set of rules for the TCF sector. Is that correct?