Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

As I was indicating, the Greens do want to pursue our responsibilities here in the Senate very vigorously and we are already doing that. Senator Siewert has been and continues to be an exemplary Chair of the Senate Community Affairs References Committee. When I speak to people around the country, of all political persuasions, they say to me that they regard Senator Siewert extremely highly as being a very professional chair. I have absolutely no doubt that Senator Wright, if it is the will of the Senate, will be an equally good, professional chair in that role with the experience she brings to the Senate.

It is time for people to reflect on how we want our democracy to operate in Australia—whether we want it to give effect to the will of the people as shown at elections. The will of the people at an election returned nine Greens senators to the Senate. That means that on a pro rata basis the Greens should have the chair of two committees. We are now moving to ensure that that actually becomes part of the Senate process in spite of the fact that if the coalition had their way they would once again abolish the Senate committee system, once again take away chairs from any opposition party. Make no mistake about it, Mr Acting Deputy President, the contributions we have heard today have just reinforced the extent to which they would ruthlessly destroy a democratic tradition of the Senate since its inception—that is, until the Howard government destroyed it during that particular period.

As I pointed out earlier, Senator Joyce misrepresented Odgers, as Odgers specifically talks about the role of the crossbench in relation to Senate committees. One of the things that seems to confuse and distract Senator Joyce and some of his colleagues, as was evidenced by his speech, is a view—and it must come from his experience in the coalition—that people can only have a similar view about things if they are dragooned into it by the leader's office. I can see that that was a tradition with the Howard government and I can see it is a tradition with the current leader of the coalition. What this points out is something that the Greens alone have in the political process in Australia, which is a consistent philosophical view. It is a consistent philosophical view that is based on the global Greens charter.

One of our great strengths in the 21st century is that, unlike other political parties in parliaments around the world, including here in Australia where they base their views on their opinion polling, on what their focus groups have to say, on what newspapers such as the Murdoch press have to say and so on, the Greens have a philosophical view based on the four pillars of ecological integrity, participatory democracy—and participatory democracy is what we are pursuing here in this parliament—social justice, and peace and nonviolence. Those four very strong philosophical views underpin the Greens, and we bring that perspective to every issue that comes before us. That is why when a matter comes before the parliament you know, as Senator Faulkner and others have said about us in the past, that the Greens have a consistent philosophical view that it is based on a set of principles—unlike the other parties, who actually do not have a philosophical view anymore, which is why they are all over the place on a variety of issues. That is why we are strongly in favour of participatory democracy and the pro rata expression of what came from the 2010 election. I look forward to the Greens taking the second share in the Senate committee process.