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

The Greens will not be supporting this legislation. I will give cogent reasons for that in a moment. First, I want to refer to the contribution from Senator Abetz. He has turned his guns on the journalists today, saying that some of the members of that group have been prepared to go to prison rather than reveal their sources. But there is no journalist who has the power in the first place to veto a court that might hear the case that would lead to that outcome. This is not so with Senator Abetz. Today in this parliament, when a motion was put up by Senator Ludwig to refer matters to the Privileges Committee, the coalition and Senator Fielding effectively abolished the court, by refusing that reference. So there is not a clear analogy here at all. What should have happened, of course, was that the reference to the Privileges Committee—which, by the way, meets in camera and does protect sources—should have gone ahead. But it was blocked. Senator Abetz may have fled the chamber at the time of the vote—