Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

If I may speak briefly on the—on the face of it—reasonable suggestion of the Leader of the Government in the Senate, I observe that the last time this occasion arose it was once again Senator Bob Brown who was in the midst of it. So, whilst normally, if you would offer some leeway to a senator, that might be appropriate; the simple fact is that there is a degree of serial offending here. Mr Acting Deputy President, the circumstances are that this has been a robust debate. On a number of occasions I was sat down in mid-flight because of interjections from the other side. When we have robust debates, if it gets too much for the speaker at the time, it is proper for the speaker to seek protection from the chair. But to seek to reflect on the chair, not having been told by the senator that he or she seeks protection, is clearly offensive. Nevertheless, we have moved on from that to a situation where you, from the chair, have asked a senator to withdraw certain remarks.

Can I say, with great respect in this place, that many of us have, from time to time, simply withdrawn matters that were not necessarily, in our minds or in the minds of other senators, offensive. But, just to keep the show on the road, you show something that I have not yet seen displayed by the Leader of the Greens—that is, simple good grace, and say, ‘I withdraw.’ You then sit down, let the show go on and thus protect the integrity of the chair and any person who might be presiding in that chair from time to time. So I would ask on this occasion that Senator Brown show some good grace and simply withdraw and allow the matter to proceed. If he were to do that then the actual words, and whether he should have been required to withdraw them or not, can be referred to the President for him to report back to us on at a future time. But, in the meantime, what harm is there in withdrawing, other than one particular senator’s personal pride?