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

I seek leave to move a motion which would allow Senator Sarah Hanson-Young to explain to the Senate for five minutes her contact with the Commonwealth Ombudsman and questions at Senate estimates arising therefrom.

Leave not granted.

Pursuant to contingent notice, I move:

That so much of standing orders be suspended as would prevent me moving a motion to provide for the consideration of a matter, namely a motion to give precedence to a motion to allow Senator Sarah Hanson-Young to explain to the Senate for five minutes her contact with the Commonwealth Ombudsman and questions at Senate estimates arising therefrom.

In moving this motion, let me say it has been well accepted practice that people will from time to time have contact with witnesses that appear before Senate estimates. That is accepted practice. But what is unbelievable is the gross hypocrisy of the Australian Greens, because two years ago Senator Bob Brown, the Leader of the Australian Greens, said that if you do something like that you should have the decency to warn the committee, to tell the committee beforehand that you have had such contact. It is a bit like corporate donations, isn't it? Corporate donations are horrendous, they are bad and they corrupt the democratic process, unless the Greens are the beneficiaries of that donation. Similarly it seems that it is a corruption of the democratic process to have contact with a witness before Senate estimates unless you are a Greens senator. Then it is all okay.

The hypocrisy is rank, the hypocrisy is transparent, and the Australian people are finally waking up to how the Greens do their politics. It is deceptive, it is dishonest, it is duplicitous. It is exactly what the Greens represent in this place: one standard for everybody else and a completely different standard, or should I say no standards whatsoever, for the Australian Greens. That is why Senator Hanson-Young should come into this place, not so much to explain what she has done but to explain the rank hypocrisy of the Australian Greens as was displayed by the Leader and his deputy leader of the Australian Greens and indeed by the Australian Labor Party. It is so indicative that Senator Milne, who was more than willing to pontificate two years ago when a coalition senator found himself in that place, at the doorstop this morning said, 'Senator Brown and Senator Hanson-Young will be discussing that.' She did not want to talk about the rank hypocrisy. And we know why: because Senator Hanson-Young is challenging her for the deputy leadership of the Australian Greens. That is why she was not willing to defend Senator Hanson-Young, and of course you cannot defend the hypocrisy of the Australian Greens. The Australian people are slowly but surely waking up to this hypocrisy, this duplicity, this double standard—