Alan Ferguson (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Hansard source

Firstly, Mr President, Senator Bob Brown is quite wrong and your determination is quite right. Senator Brown has said that, because of your determination, this matter will not be allowed to proceed to the Standing Committee of Privileges. That is totally wrong, Senator Brown, and you have been in this place long enough to know that that is wrong. All that the President did in his determination was not give precedence to Senator Milne’s motion. He did not give it precedence. There is nothing to stop Senator Milne, if she wants to, moving her motion through the normal, democratic processes of this chamber. There is absolutely nothing to stop her doing that. And then we will see whether the democratic processes of the chamber work.

You will find, Senator Brown—Senator Abetz having put the coalition’s position—that in fact you are a very small minority in your views about those processes. There are people in this place that believe that the current committee system and the processes of the Senate do work, have worked and will work as they have done for the last 108 or 109 years. Senator Brown comes in here and makes his political statements about democracy, saying, ‘This wouldn’t happen in the US Senate.’ We make our own rules, Senator Brown; we work by those rules.

All the President was asked to do was to give precedence to Senator Milne’s motion. In no way did the President make a ruling that the matter should not be discussed by the Privileges Committee. That is for the Senate to determine, Senator Brown, as you well know, not the President. So the President, after looking at all the evidence that was put before him by Senator Milne in her letter to him, determined that the matter should not take precedence in the Senate—but that is the only ruling and determination that he has made.

Having read the statement that the President has made to the Senate, I can say that I concur wholeheartedly with his decision. If Senator Milne wishes to take this matter further and try and get the Senate to refer the matter to the Privileges Committee, that is her responsibility—if she chooses to do that. But in no way was the President’s determination wrong. What is wrong is you, Senator Brown, saying that his determination was wrong, because I and, I am sure, all members on this side of the chamber agree that the President’s determination was indeed correct.

Question agreed to.