Michaelia Cash (WA, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Immigration) Share this | Hansard source

I move:

That the Senate notes the reflections of the Leader of the Australian Greens (Senator Bob Brown) on the President of the Senate, the Prime Minister (Ms Gillard), the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry (Senator Ludwig), Senator Boswell, the Leader of The Nationals in the Senate (Senator Joyce) and Senator Cash.

I rise to contribute to the debate on this motion. It is a very serious motion, and at the outset I wish to point out that I will not be canvassing the material from Senator Kroger, which the Senate has referred to its Privileges Committee, in relation to Senator Bob Brown. Suffice it to say that Senator Kroger has argued:

… it is necessary for the Senate to be protected from the corrupting influence of a senator negotiating a $1.6 million corporate donation for their party, which has led to questions being asked, points of order taken, and votes being cast in the interests of the donor.

What concerns me today—hence the motion that we are now debating—is Senator Brown's behaviour since this reference and, in particular, his indiscriminate attacks on the President of the Senate, the Prime Minister, Senator Ludwig, Senator Boswell, Senator Joyce and me.

Senator Brown's reaction to the passage of Senator Kroger's motion referring him to the Privileges Committee was to give notice of a motion censoring the Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry, Senator Ludwig, over the Tasmanian Forests Intergovernmental Agreement. Senator Ludwig was, of course, at that time the Manager of Government Business in the Senate. I believe that the Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Evans, probably talked Senator Brown out of this attack on the Greens' alliance partner, as Senator Brown withdrew his notice of motion. However, Senator Brown, whilst obviously admonished, was undeterred. Two days later he gave notice of a similar motion calling on Senator Ludwig to report on the failure of the Prime Minister to uphold the Tasmanian Forests IGA. He then gave notice of another highly disrespectful—indeed, one might say pitiful—motion suggesting that the President had allowed the Privileges Committee to be politicised by giving precedence to a SLAPP-writ-style reference from Senator Kroger. SLAPP stands for 'strategic lawsuit against public participa­tion'. However, consistently with so much of what Senator Brown does, I have no idea what relevance this could possibly have to a Privileges Committee reference.

But it did not end there. Senator Brown's deliberate and completely unfounded assault on the integrity of other members of the Senate continued. On the last day of the Senate sittings we learned that, in a tit-for-tat exercise, Senator Brown had concocted a charge against the father of the Senate, Senator Boswell, and had written to the President of the Senate asking that he give precedence to a motion to refer his allegations—which are no more than deliberate slurs against Senator Boswell—to the Privileges Committee. Anyone in this place who has served with Senator Boswell would agree that he, above all of us here, is a man of principle and integrity and does not have a corrupt bone in his body. Being a man of principle, despite being deliberately and unfairly targeted by the Australian Greens, he will not be silenced or deterred in his fight against the anti-Semitic boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign being spearheaded by Senator Rhiannon.

The President quite rightly rejected Senator Brown's request. Senator Brown, of course, refused to accept the ruling of the President, moved a motion of dissent and then turned his attack on the President of the Senate. A considered person would have taken the time over the parliamentary recess to consider their ill-informed behaviour. Senator Brown did not do this. What we have witnessed this week, the first sitting week of 2012, was a continued and sustained attack on the President of the Senate, with Senator Brown accusing Senator Hogg of bias, of a remarkable error of judgment, of a failure of presidential prudence, of a double standard, of facilitating an ambush on Senator Milne and him, and of a disgraceful detriment to the Senate's tradition of fairness. This was not only unwarranted but an unprecedented attack on the President of the Senate which could not pass unanswered.

Sadly, Senator Brown's childish behaviour does not end there. Over the parliamentary recess, Senator Brown continued his petulant attack and turned on the Prime Minister over the Tasmanian IGA by unilaterally breaking off his weekly meetings with her—weekly meetings which, I note, are a condition of the Labor-Greens agreement. Then, as senators resumed this year, we discovered that Senator Brown had also written to the President in relation to Senator Joyce and me with more trumped-up charges that he wanted brought before the Privileges Committee. Unsurprisingly, the President determined that they should not be given precedence. The fact that these are trumped-up charges was admitted by Senator Brown yesterday in a statement to the Senate, when he said in relation to the President's ruling:

I think your decision to effectively reject my application in the matters regarding Senator Boswell, Senator Cash and Senator Joyce was correct.

Yet, despite this admission in the Senate yesterday, Senator Brown continues to waste the time of the Senate and continues to treat the Australian people with contempt. He has now put on the Notice Paper notices of motion in relation to these matters, matters that Senator Brown himself has admitted that the President was right to dismiss.

Senator Brown's statement and his ensuing actions confirm that Senator Brown sees himself as the leader of an elitist party with no regard for the practices or procedures of the Senate or, indeed, the parliament and, ultimately, has contempt for the Australian people. However, whilst it may well be disappointing to so many of us that a political party leader would use the Senate in this childish manner, it is hardly surprising. I am, however, like so many others, amazed that the other Greens' senators put up with such erratic behaviour from their leader. Clearly, Senator Brown's actions in lashing out at everyone in a scattergun approach is an attempt to distract attention from his own predicament. We know that some members of the Greens are onto this and believe that Senator Brown is out of control. To quote from the Monthly's feature on the rift in the Greens:

Members of the old guard have been heard referring to Brown as a 'megalomaniac'.

Senator Brown's behaviour, as I have outlined, is surely an example of this personality trait. We see motions and privileges references from someone with no real insight into why people believe that he behaved corruptly and who is lashing out at anyone and everyone in an attempt to justify himself and his own diminishing relevance.

We all know why Senator Brown's relevance and his grip on the Australian Greens is diminishing: because Senator Rhiannon is consciously and deliberately undermining Senator Brown's leadership. While Kevin Rudd has been white-anting Ms Gillard, Senator Rhiannon has been red-anting Senator Brown on this very issue. This started last year, when Senator Rhiannon's Democracy4$ale website featured criticisms of the Graeme Wood donation and reported allegations of Senator Brown's conflict of interest in relation to the Triabunna mill sale.

Since November, after Senator Brown was referred to the Privileges Committee for investigation over this matter, Senator Rhiannon's harping about the evils of corporate donations, particularly from property developers, has reached fever pitch. To quote a report from the Australian:

Angry Greens believe Senator Rhiannon set out to embarrass her leader over the privileges reference with a string of media releases and press conferences over donations and a notice of motion on lobbyists as the Senate vote loomed and in its aftermath … 'It's too much of a coincidence,' one Greens insider insisted.

I'll say it is! Now Senator Rhiannon's criticism has become explicit. In the current issue of the Monthly, featuring the rift in the Greens, Senator Rhiannon is quoted as saying this about the almost $1.7 million donation to the Greens negotiated by Senator Brown with Wotif founder, Graeme Wood:

We—

the New South Wales Greens—

would have considered that a large donation from one person—considering we have worked very hard and in some ways we have led the campaign around political donations—may not have been wise for us.

It is no wonder that Greens insiders believe Senator Rhiannon is deliberately undermin­ing Senator Brown's leadership. What she is saying to Senator Brown, to her colleagues and to the Greens membership, is that Senator Brown was unwise to take the donation from Mr Wood and that, had Senator Rhiannon been in the same position, she would not have.

As each day goes past, the Australian people are recognising that the Australian Greens are a party of contradictions. On the one hand they garner votes by pretending to be a cuddly party of tree huggers who are holier than thou in their approach to their finances and policies, whilst on the other hand they harvest massive political donations which they attempt to hide from the public. The Greens holier-than-thou claim that they cannot be bought is put to rest when you look at some of the political donations that they themselves have received. Corporate donations are horrendous. They are bad and they corrupt the democratic process—unless, of course, the Australian Greens are the beneficiaries of that donation. Absolute hypocrisy. The Australian people are waking up to the way that the Australian Greens operate and their gross hypocrisy. Led by Senator Bob Brown, their actions show them to be deceptive, dishonest and duplicitous. The Greens' hypocrisy is rank.