Rachel Siewert (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I want to contribute to this debate and point out a few things. I pick up on the point about the ALP taking the opposition's private members' time. I hear some of the interjections from the government saying, 'It was our time'. At no point during our whips meetings did the government indicate that they wanted this particular private members' time, and there was a motion passed that said it was in fact the coalition's time and the coalition wanted to debate their bill on how to kill off marine protected areas. At this point, the coalition, by agreeing to this motion, is saying, 'We want to kill off marriage equality more than we want to kill off marine parks.' Good on you, folks!

The other issue is that Minister Evans made out as if we were talking about the Greens bill. He pointed out that Senator Hanson-Young has brought in a Greens bill for marriage equality. Quite correct, and we debated that in general business time and private members' time last session. We did not want to rush that. We did not seek to take over any other time or to move motions to take over any other time. But the government senators have brought in their own bill to discuss, and that is what we are discussing now. So let us be very clear on that. Our bill is still on the Notice Paper.

The Greens have never denied that we did not want to vote on this, because we see the tactics that are being carried out here by the government and the opposition, and that is to try—because they will not actually succeed—to kill the debate on marriage equality. The community is not going to let that happen, because the community, as I articulated yesterday—64 per cent—are in favour of marriage equality. So the community is not going to let this happen, in terms of it going off the agenda, and we do not want it to go off the agenda. We were really clear on that. We saw all along what the government and the coalition were up to: they were trying to stop this debate in the run-up to the election, because they think that the community will then stop this discussion. Well, they will not. We will be keeping our bill here—it is still on the Notice Paperand we will still be discussing that.

But this is what this issue is about. It is about rushing it through so that there will be a vote at, what, two or three o'clock tomorrow morning, when they think it is not going to get any media attention. That is what this is about. It is not about allowing everybody to have their say; it is allowing everybody to have their say at midnight tomorrow night. Great.