Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

On behalf of Senator Fierravanti-Wells: whilst the coalition recognises and applauds the work of the World Toilet Organisation, we will not be supporting the motion moved by the Australian Greens. This motion is just another example of the Greens using the floor of the Senate to grandstand in a crass attempt to raise their political profile by framing motherhood statements in the form of a motion and then challenging other political parties not to agree to them so that they can run off to the media, tell them what jolly good fellows the Greens are and what horrible people the other parties are. With approximately 2.6 billion people around the globe having little or no access to basic sanitation, and with a lack of sanitation being the world’s biggest cause of infection, it is incumbent upon us in this chamber to take the health implications of this lack of sanitation seriously.

The Greens as a party are well aware that successive Australian governments have provided funding in the form of overseas aid to assist sanitation programs around the world and yet the Greens waste the time of the Senate on motions which are designed to achieve nothing more than self-gratification. The coalition believes that the Senate, which is meant to act as a house of review, is having its time wasted day after day with motions from the Greens that are designed to provide Senator Brown and his colleagues with a media opportunity to issue yet another motherhood media statement whilst criticising the coalition and at times the government for not supporting their motions. The Greens need to mature as a political party and understand that proposing motions that are nothing more and nothing less than motherhood statements gives them no credit as a political party.