Stephen Parry (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

The opposition will also be opposing this motion. We do agree with the sentiment that the Greens have raised in their motion and we did unsuccessfully attempt to negotiate a slight amendment with the Greens. We have said in this place on many occasions that the opposition does not support foreign policy being debated by way of notices of motion in this place, and that is a position we do not resile from. We support most of the comments raised by the government in relation to this motion. In 2007, a motion was moved by Senator Payne in a very similar manner to this, but it did not dictate to another country the way in which that country should behave. It also used slightly different language concerning this matter while expressing very similar sentiments. For those reasons, the opposition will not be supporting the motion.