Michael Ronaldson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Veterans' Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I will take that admonishment, Madam Acting Deputy President. I want to refer to some of Senator Brown's other comments tonight. You could never have heard a better case for Senator Brown to vote against this legislation than the speech he just gave. The reason he has put up his amendments is the reason he should vote against this bill if the amendments do not get up. We know the amendments are unconstitutional, we know the referral is unconstitutional, so his amendments will not get up. If Senator Brown was serious about this, if that 20 minutes was not just a rave and a rant that was quite meaningless, he would vote against this bill on the basis of his royalty comments alone. If the uncertainty that Senator Brown is talking about and the impacts of that certainty are left—using his words—to continue, then he will vote against the bill, surely, on the back of that. I do not know who this economics expert is that Senator Brown was referring to. The gentleman may well be—