Ian Macdonald (Queensland, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Northern and Remote Australia) Share this | Hansard source

They have been rubbishing Gunns for decades. They support Gunns on this occasion so that Gunns will get out of the Triabunna mill so that—who can buy the Triabunna mill? Would it be Mr Wood, the donor of the $1.6 million? Or Aprin? Of course, we know how the Greens then have done everything to stop Aprin from having a free go at it. All of this Senator Brown could have answered. He could have got up and explained to the Senate. We actually gave him a five-minute opportunity to stand up and point out where the facts are wrong, where the insinuations are wrong, but did he do it? In his typical cowardly fashion, he used his five minutes to find attacks on anything and anyone else that he could. Then—the doozy of all doozies—Senator Brown talked about this wonderful democratic institution of parliament, when he has spent the last week shutting parliament down, doing the sort of thing that totalitarian regimes in the past have done.

You know how you set up a dictatorship? You take over a parliament; you stop debate. First of all, you curtail debate. Once you have got rid of the opposition, once you have got rid of any debate in the parliament, you then shut down the parliament and you rule by decree. It seems to me that before too long we will have the Labor Party and the Greens ruling by decree following their caucus meeting every morning: 'Why bother with parliament? Why have a debate? We have already made up our minds. This is what is going to happen. The carbon tax is going to pass. It doesn't matter what inconsistencies you bring out; it's going to pass and it's going to pass at 12.30 next Tuesday afternoon.' That is how totalitarian regimes start, and this is what Senator Brown is part of.