Jan McLucas (Queensland, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I am also pleased to join this debate, for two reasons. Firstly to commend the report—a balanced, sensible report that has been handed down to the people of Northern Australia by a balanced and sensible group of people who have looked at the science and the aspirations of northern Australians and come up with a set of 15 sensible recommendations that will take us forward.

But in commending the report I also rise to defend the membership of the committee that has been put together by our government. Let’s remember, Senators, that this committee was the committee that was established under Senator Heffernan and which included only the Liberal and National Party politicians of Northern Australia. There were no Labor people and no people from the Greens. They came up with this wonderful suggestion that the only group of people who would have any knowledge of the aspirations of northern Australians had to be Liberal and National Party members of parliament. It was the biggest political stack I have seen in my life. Thank goodness we had the opportunity to pull those senators and members off the committee and give it some balance so that it had a way forward.

I noticed that Senator Macdonald, in his contribution today, took the opportunity again to denigrate the membership of the committee. He has made wild assertions in this place and also in the media in North Queensland, about the expertise and the motivations of the membership. I notice that he was a little less vitriolic here in the chamber than he was in the North Queensland press recently, and that suggests to me that he was playing to his audience.

It also suggests to me that there are a number of members of the committee who had to go into print to defend themselves against his vitriol, his bias and his—