Nigel Scullion (NT, Country Liberal Party, Minister for Indigenous Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

I think this bill that we are debating, the Food Standards Amendment (Fish Labelling) Bill 2015, is a very, very important piece of legislation. I would like to commend my colleague Senator Xenophon for bringing it to this place. There should be no surprise about my view on this. Of course I support the thrust of this legislation. But I would like to just take on board a couple of comments that have been made, certainly by Senator Peris, when I walked into this place.

Senator Peris indicated that, yes, there is multipartisan support for the thrust of this legislation in this place. But I would advise that when she is speaking to her speech writer she gets her speech writer not to verbal everybody before she has come into this place. For you to come into this place and say 'all of the coalition in this place'—as you read off the speech that was written—before you heard what people had to say, there are plenty of those people in the coalition who are not supporting this legislation, and then she goes on to say you are not supporting it either. When you are talking about Bob Richards, he would be pretty nauseated to hear that his own senator is politicising a bill that so far is not politicised. Everyone is on the same side here, Senator Peris, and I think it is completely unnecessary to take snapshots in a piece of legislation where it is very important to ensure that everyone is on the same side.