Barry O'Sullivan (Queensland, National Party) Share this | Hansard source

I will. The quote continues:

at the invitation of Leonid Brezhnev's neo-Stalinist regime."

And I further quote:

Rhiannon edited the pro-Soviet and Soviet-supported monthly magazine Survey, founded by her father, from his retirement in 1988 until it ceased publication, staying at the helm even after the fall of the Berlin Wall.

On her visit to Moscow, Senator Rhiannon also studied at the International Lenin School In Moscow. However, she has never divulged exactly what it was she studied or what other activities she engaged in whilst in Moscow. So I invite her to provide these details of her past.

Senator Rhiannon has never explained what arrangements she had with Moscow as an agent of influence, nor has she ever explained what she received in return. As Mr Aarons also said of Senator Rhiannon in 2010, 'I could not conceive of someone of my age and experience supporting Moscow's politics.' Yet that is what Lee Brown, as she once was, did. Even Communists with a conscience, such as Mr Aarons, have denounced Senator Rhiannon's lack of conscience in supporting the Soviet Union.

Last night, Senator Rhiannon delivered an appalling smear against Mr Hadgkiss on behalf of the CFMEU. She asserted that because Mr Hadgkiss visited Northern Ireland at a time when certain violent acts were taking place, that he is somehow implicated in those acts. Senator Rhiannon herself stated, 'There is no suggestion that Hadgkiss was involved in crimes committed by the RUC.' Of course there is not. But that did not stop her from claiming that he is somehow implicated in anything that the RUC might have done. Just a few lines later in her speech, after detailing some particular incidents that occurred in Northern Ireland, she reverses this position and says, and I quote again, 'Hadgkiss cannot use the excuse that the crimes perpetuated by the RUC were not known when he visited.' This is the lowest form of smear: when no evidence exists, simply assert 'guilty by association', no matter how ludicrous the claim, in the hope some mud might stick. As Senator Rhiannon's hero Vladimir Ilych Lenin once said, 'A lie told often enough becomes the truth.' (Time expired)