Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Parliamentary Secretary to the Minister for the Environment) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Bilyk, again, highlights a key difference between the parties. In talking about this legislation I have said there is the difference between a party of government that wants to get things right to start with and a party like the Labor Party that pursues shoddy legislation. There is also of course the difference between a party that stands by grassroots preselections. We may not always like the results of those grassroots preselections, but they are grassroots preselections where our party members have a vote and where we live by the consequences.

In your case, what happened to poor old Senator Farrell? Poor old Senator Farrell faced a situation where the Premier went on Adelaide radio and said, 'I'll resign, if I don't get my way. I'll stare him down publicly, I'll force him out of the preselection and he'll never get the opportunity to go to a vote'—never mind that it would have only then been a factional vote of the state executive that would have placed him straight in there.

I feel that Senator Farrell, who has been a long and loyal servant of the Labor Party, was unfairly treated. And I understand why he did not like me raising the fact that, at the state election, there was a clear majority to vote for change. At the Woomera booth there was a clear majority to vote for change—