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

Another day in the Senate and what do we have today? We have another stunt from the Greens. Today the Greens are pushing their publicity buttons and desperately angling for some media exposure by pushing National Go Home on Time Day.

I referred last Thursday to the publicity stunts performed on a daily basis by the Greens. But I do not want anyone to get too excited by this stunt, because it is a re-run by the same Greens assisted by the same Australia Institute of the same motion run around the same time last year. And let us face it, hardly any workers took this stunt seriously. And guess what? Not even the Greens took the stunt seriously. It is utter hypocrisy. On 25 November 2009 Senators Brown and Milne did not even heed their own advice—more’s the pity—as Hansard clearly shows them working well past the knock-off time they urge upon others and feign their support for. We will be watching the good Greens tomorrow to see if they actually let their staff off at 4.51 pm.

But this is the interesting bit: National Go Home on Time Day is the invention of Richard Dennis, the executive director of the left-wing think tank, the Australia Institute, and National Go Home on Time Day, we are told, is an initiative of the Australia Institute. The real fact is that it continues to be promoted by an incestuous bunch of Greens and the unions. Surprise, surprise—the facts also show that Richard Dennis is a former senior strategic adviser to Senator Bob Brown. And guess who is on the board of the Australia Institute. Ben Oquist, Senator Bob Brown’s chief of staff, is on the board. No doubt he will be looking to knock off early tomorrow, at 4.51 pm. Then add Lin Hatfield Dodds, the Greens Senate candidate for the ACT at the last election, Sharan Burrow, Barbara Pocock and Meredith Edwards—and you have all of the usual suspects. But it gets better. Then there is Sarah Maddison, Chair of the Australia Institute, who last month joined the board of GetUp!—another left-wing Labor-Greens front which bills itself as independent, when it is anything but.

When are the Greens and the unions going to stop trying to deceive Australians with these sorts of fronts and stunts? The Australia Institute is even using National Go Home on Time Day as a fund-raising vehicle for the institute. That says it all.