Glenn Sterle (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, I must acknowledge your patience. The other day I was making a contribution on the motion to take note of answers to questions that were given to ministers, and you quite appropriately pulled me up. I was off track, but that is all I have heard today. Senator Ruston gave Senator Brown a good bollocking about not being on message, so to speak. Through you, Deputy President: you were way off, Senator Ruston, and then you went into it and you talked about all sorts of nonsense that we had not even mentioned in here.

I will get back to the crux of my contribution, and it is answers that were given to questions to the Attorney-General and Acting Leader of the Government in the Senate, Senator Brandis. I just want to note that when one of our senators questioned a message that was going around on the internet from Mr Greg Hunt MP, the Minister for the Environment, it was an indictment of the government that they would not allow the document to be tabled. I think that it was very appropriate, because we have just sat here listening to filibustering this week. I have sat in your position on a number of occasions, Mr Deputy President, and I have listened to some of the speeches; I think that this was all just coverage for the Prime Minister because he has gone out and done another captain's pick. In my interpretation of this, the government were quickly trying to cover the Prime Minister's backside because of some dopey deal that he was trying to do without consulting his cabinet.

I think it is important that we do actually acknowledge what the heck is going on. For those poor devils in the gallery that listen to some of the personal attacks in this chamber: look, there is nothing wrong with a good bit of argy-bargy—we all engage in it, and we all have thick skins like rhinoceroses—but there are times when the debate in this chamber and in this parliament is absolutely beyond the schoolyard. The saddest part about this is before I got to this place I saw this establishment, this building here, as the epitome of our democracy; but since the time that the now Prime Minister, Mr Abbott, became the Leader of the Opposition, the quality of the debates and the personal attacks—well, I put it down to he started it. We must never forget some of the disgusting stuff that was going on against Prime Minister Gillard, led ably by the now Prime Minister standing in front of shocking posters saying, 'Juliar … Bob Brown's bitch'. Then Senator Ruston comes out here and cries crocodile tears about attacking Senator Brandis. Senator Brandis is a QC; he can cop as much as he can dish out. It was an honourable thing to try and come to his defence. But, seriously—through you, Mr Deputy President—Senator Ruston, that was quite poor.

I have come from another angle. I have sat there and watched Senator Brandis be involved in a number of embarrassing situations and gaffes. Let us just not think that it is one incident in this chamber or the odd Walkley-winning interview on Sky News—I think that Senator Brandis is defending something even worse here, and it has to be the quality of the leadership in this country. Who would have thought that just after 12 months the government would be going into a leadership spill? Who would have thought that leaks would be coming out of cabinet in the first year of a new government? Who would have thought for one minute that the Prime Minister would go to a spill and win 61-39 to a vacant seat?

Senator Back interjecting—

The leaks keep coming. Through you, Mr Deputy President, I sat there in silence. I listened to Senator Canavan's pretty meek defence of the Attorney-General today. His words were, 'It's not your decision; it's our decision; we've made this decision,' in reference to the citizenship debate. Senator Canavan, I do not know what planet you have been on and I do not know what garden bed you have been sniffing around after using the cigarette lighter; this came from a leak. This was on the front pages of the paper. It was not your decision. Your caucus did not sit there and say, 'Dear Prime Minister, we want to get tough on these so-and-sos who are dual citizens, and we want to kick them out'. You should have seen the look on their faces. You would have thought that they trod on dog poo with no thongs on! They were just as surprised as us. They had absolutely no idea. The media had it. Fairfax had it; Murdoch had it. Senator Canavan, hilarious! Congratulations! I did sit there; I wanted to listen to it.

Senator Brandis has been successful in one thing, as my colleague Senator Brown said: he has united the crossbench. We have seen the crossbench, as one, all vote on a couple of references. Congratulations, Senator Brandis, you have been very successful in the last couple of days! (Time expired)