Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. I have always thought so myself!

So on this issue the National Party does have an extremely strong interest. It was one of those times where the National Party crossed the floor—the lot of us, on carbon sink legislation.

Now there is an interesting thing we should talk about. We have the carbon tax legislation coming up. One of the greatest rights you have in this place as a represent­ative of the people, first and foremost—there is no mention of a political party in the Constitution; it is your representation of the people—is that if you believe something to be truly right you can vote on that accordingly. You have the right to walk from one section to another in this chamber and in the other place. It is a fundamental right that you should have. I believe strongly that, behind the rhetoric, there are people in the Australian Labor Party and maybe the Greens—or maybe not—who fundamentally do not believe in a carbon tax. It is wrong that in the year of our Lord 2011 we still have this kind of medieval approach of bullying people so that on key issues they cannot exercise their vote in the way they see fit. And this is a key issue; it is a big one. No-one can arrest you or assault you because of it. But it is wrong. We talk about the modern position with the internet the way it is and we talk about all the other liberties that people want and their view on them. We are allowed to discuss same-sex marriage but we are not allowed to discuss the liberty of being able to vote the way you want to on an issue. But you should be able to do that.

It is absurd that some person you have never in your life met and who was never elected to office can instigate a process of extracting you from this parliament by disendorsement or basically bullying you out of the joint. That is wrong. It should not be happening these days, and I think the Australian people are more and more becoming a wake-up to this. They will watch the carbon tax debate evolve and they will be asking their local representative to represent them first and foremost above and beyond allegiances to any other body. That is their right; it is what they should be entitled to do. Every person will be answerable for the way they vote, because it takes only one vote in the other place to stop the carbon tax. So any one of the people in the lower house actually has the balance of power. They have the capacity to make a major change for our nation. All they have to do is move the 10 feet or 10 metres from one side to the other. The right to take that walk should be absolutely ingrained. It should be your fundamental right.