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

That is understood. No discourtesy intended, Senator Kroger—I did check with the whip before you arrived.

We know that the state is already turning to the tools of mass surveillance and police intimidation against those who put their bodies on the line in defence of country and community. Without the freedom to organise and the freedom to communicate online or off, all our other freedoms are at immediate threat—an invisible electronic thread that links the pirate and the hacker with the public interest whistleblower and the young climate campaigners fighting to secure the future of their generations—and, I might add, those who bore witness in the Victorian parliament only a few days ago, when the right to lawful dissent and protest was taken out of the statute books.

The stakes are high, as high as the ruination of Fukushima on the Pacific coast of Japan, as high as small island states facing saltwater inundation and forced evacuations as our planet warms. We are all in this together. Wherever you are in this great country tonight, however you can help to turn the ship, it would be—noted.