Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I would very briefly like to support Senator Cormann in what he has said. It does again highlight the absolute arrogance of this government in dealing with parliament. I rise simply to draw the attention of the chamber to the absence of the Greens in this debate. The Greens went into an arrangement with the Labor Party—into a coalition one might almost say—to keep Ms Gillard in power as Prime Minister, to keep all the Labor front bench in the ministerial leather, so to speak, and the quid pro quo for that was supposedly greater accountability and openness.

As with most things with the Greens, we know that they are not really what they seem to be. They are not an environmental party at all; they are a radical socialist party. With one or two exceptions, most of their current senators are more interested in radical socialism than they are in the environment. But I would have thought that this would be the sort of debate where the Greens would be here in force. In fact, I would have thought that this would be the sort of issue where the Greens would be saying to Ms Gillard, ‘If you want our support in parliament, you have to make sure that this information that is ordered by the Senate is made available.’ So I totally endorse Senator Cormann’s comments, possibly with one exception, and that is that a lot of the mining tax revenue comes from my state of Queensland. But we will not argue over trifling issues. Certainly Senator Cormann is right, and I had hoped that by this time the Greens might have come down into the chamber to also support Senator Cormann in what is a very, very important issue for parliamentary democracy.

Question agreed to.