Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Pursuant to contingent notice, I move:

That so much of the standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion relating to the conduct of the business of the Senate, namely a motion to give precedence to general business notice of motion No. 359.

I do that because, while the opposition may single this motion out to be delayed, the Greens had no problem with assessing and voting on motions on exactly the same topic—two of them by the opposition last week. It may be that the opposition's Tasmanian senators who are in the chamber cannot deal with a simple motion that deals with the question of the current Tasmanian forest debate. The thing that rattled the opposition is that on this occasion the motion notes the negative carping and the continuously failing alternative options of the opposition itself.

We saw that on the weekend at a particularly nasty rally of a few hundred loggers in Hobart, which was addressed by the Liberal Leader of the Opposition in Tasmania. Most people stop tearing up paper at the age of five, but on this occasion the Liberal Leader of the Opposition, Mr Hodgman, tore up the Intergovernmental Agreement on Forests in front of a hooting crowd—a very tiny crowd—of self-invested pro-logging proponents in Tasmania.