Cory Bernardi (SA, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Moore is denying herself rightful praise that she well deserves for standing up to the progressive juggernaut that sought to decapitate a Conservative senator—because Senator Moore, to her great credit, said to The Sydney Morning Herald that what was represented in the News Corp papers and what had been perpetuated by people like Senator Waters and this unknown MP, Tim Watts, was a load of baloney, it was not what Bernardi had said or represented and there was no way he was condoning that.

If this motion to vary business is passed, I will be denied my right and, I think, my moral obligation to say on the public record a gracious and sincere thankyou to Senator Claire Moore for her defence of me, someone who is not politically aligned with her on virtually anything, I would say, and Senator Moore may concur with that. It says to me that there are decent people in this place who are prepared to honour righteousness, truth and justice, rather than just seek to claim a political scalp. I think that is manifestly unfair, and I think that Senator Moore probably did not recognise or understand just how fulsome my recognition of her graciousness was going to be.

I know that Senator Moore is not a person whose ego needs to be fuelled somehow, and so she probably would not have stopped moving this motion today simply to receive praise and acclaim, because she is not fuelled by that. But I do think it is important for the Australian people to have the opportunity to hear that there are chances and times when senators do the right thing in the face of hostilities from some of their natural supporters.

I would have loved to have elaborated a lot more today, Mr President—which I will be denied doing if this motion is successful—about this Mr Watts MP. He is a chap who—as I said, I do not know who he is; I had to google him to find out! I do not know how long he has even been in the parliament. I have seen some photos of him and I have seen some of the vile slurs that he has put out on Twitter. He is obviously incapable of writing any substantive article or of dealing with substantive issues. He has referred to a Hansard that he has never seen. He has not seen—