Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary Assisting the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw unconditionally. But it did not stop Senator Brown, being the ecomillionaire, from collecting nearly $1 million in order to pay about $300,000 worth of legal bills. Anyone with any integrity who was not so consumed with hubris and ego would have said, 'No, I've got my charity from the public; they can keep their money for themselves.' This is a shameful stunt by a man who thinks the rules should apply differently to him than to anybody else.

This is a man who condemns political donations to any political party yet whose own party takes $1.6 million donations. I ask myself, and I am sure the Australian people will ask themselves, 'Why was it that a line of questioning in this chamber by the Greens was directly related to the business interests of the person who made that donation?' It is a proper and right question for this chamber to consider. It is a proper and right question for the Australian people to consider, Senator Brown. Might I also say that the question you are putting to the Australian people today in this chamber is simply inappropriate and improper. There is a dignity that should be maintained in this place. We should not sink to the lowest common denominator and debase it to the level that Senator Brown and the Greens wish to take it to. If we are maintaining the standing orders, if we are serious about maintaining the traditions and the other things that make the Senate such a special place in which to work, we cannot debase it by putting motions like this, by not acknowledging the chair and by showing flagrant contempt for standing orders whenever it suits. That is exactly what this does. We should not be surprised by it, because we have experienced it again and again from the Greens party.

Senator Brown and the Greens cannot handle any scrutiny—they have a glass jaw. That is why, when their policy position is examined, when there is any critical questioning of their own conduct and behaviour, their response is: 'This is the hate media; this is persecution. The Greens are different. We're separate. We're isolated from the world.'