Scott Ludlam (WA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I cannot let a comment like that go unchallenged. This is not about grandstanding. This is about the Australian parliament doing its job. When this legislature votes to avoid knowing what is going on, we are failing in our primary duty as a parliament. Unless you are deeply embedded in the national security state, you have no idea how deeply implicated we are in the extraordinary debacle and surveillance overreach of the United States government. The opposition have not declared their hand, but I am presuming that we do not have support from either the Labor, Liberal or National parties. You are voting to retain a blindfold. It is our job to establish what it going on. It is happening in the US Congress, in Westminster and in parliaments across Europe and South America. The people, through their representatives in elected chambers, are demanding to know what the hell is going on. Why in Australia are the two major parties embedded in this complicity of silence? We need answers now. (Time expired)