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

You have quite rightly made my point, Mr Deputy President. You see that when it is not a conservative senator speaking in this Senate, the conservatives have absolutely no concerns about shouting, interjecting and being rude and abusive, as we evidenced by Senator Macdonald only last week—who still has not apologised to Get Up!, I might add, for his appalling references. This morning he was interjecting about the Prime Minister in a very offensive way, and I understand the chair was not aware of it then. Yesterday, we had a situation where the coalition were heard in silence by the government and the Greens but, when it came to us speaking, the coalition behaved appallingly. Then, when we went to the divisions yesterday, we had people deliberately leaving the chamber so that the bells had to be rung for four minutes instead of one minute.