Eric Abetz (Tasmania, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations) Share this | Hansard source

Let us remember what the actual issue is here. Senator Brandis gave a very restrained, very tight personal explanation. The usual forms of this place are that people give personal explanations to try to de-escalate issues, to give a quick explanation as to where they have been misrepresented. I think nobody could argue that Senator Brandis did it in a very gracious way, even acknowledging that Senator Brown's technical point was, in fact, correct. When Senator Brown wanted to speak, I wanted to know whether Senator Brown had been misrepresented by anything that Senator Brandis had said and that was not forthcoming. Senator Brown just wanted to waste five minutes time of the Senate to argue against what Senator Brandis had said. That is not the normal way we conduct business in the Senate on these matters.

Let us be perfectly clear on this: Senator Brandis was very tight. I think he gave a very good example of what a personal explanation ought to be. But what we have had since is both Senator Brown and Senator Milne using the forms of this Senate to then misrepresent the situation. Indeed, Senator Brandis on points of order indicated that he recused himself from the committee's deliberations before he was aware of the legal opinion.

Senator Brown's very personal, nasty attack on Senator Kroger suggesting that she does not have a mind of her own is the sort of attack that female senators can do without from male senators—