Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I think we have just seen from the minister the kind of performance that is the reason that the Australian community is so fed up with the Abbott government. Minister, you can stand in here and go on with your ill-considered ideological rhetoric and what you think are effective pre-formulated attacks on Labor and the Greens, but you are not answering the questions and this Senate is absolutely being treated with contempt. To stand there and say that these are the PUP amendments is a joke. The senator who moved this amendment is not even in the chamber, because he cannot explain it; he has no idea whatsoever what he is putting to the Senate. Why? Because you wrote it for him—Treasury wrote it for him; you gave it to him; you gave it to the Palmer United Party. They stood up and moved it; they could not answer a single question on it. If you stood Senator Wang in here, he would not be able to answer a single question about which companies he is excluding or why he is taking $1 billion out. If he can, he should be in here.