Kim Carr (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister Assisting the Leader for Science) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak to oppose the amendments that the government has moved and to support Senator Moore's original motion. The government, of course, has made it perfectly clear what its agenda is here. The government wants to limit the level of scrutiny and debate about the biggest change this country has seen to the electoral act in a generation. It wants to do it in such a way as to maximise its opportunity to inflict their purge upon this Senate and it does do so in the name of democracy. It demonstrates just the sheer hypocrisy of these arrangements, which of course were entered into as a result of what the minister describes as 'secret deals behind closed doors'. They are an epitome of the secret deals done behind closed doors.

The government, of course, says that they need three months to maintain their capacity. They are the words that the minister used in here. He wanted a bit of 'spare capacity', but what he really wants to do is to tell you the date of the election and he wants to tell you the date on which they can bring forward their purge of this parliament. The purge of this parliament is aimed at removing dissidents from this government's agenda. But, of course, the truth of the matter is that they are not just trying to get rid of the dissidents, they are trying to get rid of people who have been very loyal to this government, people who have in fact voted with this government for 99 per cent of the time. But their loyalties, their acquiescence to this government's agenda, is treated with a contempt—the contempt that this government have always had. Their purge is about removing people that actually have been voting with this government as well as those that are opposed to their rhetoric. Well, so be it, but we will not be going along with that proposition.

The joint house committee recommended a series of measures. The minister himself says that this is not the same measure. I have just had a look at the bill and the general outline of the explanatory memorandum which clearly acknowledges that it is not the same proposition as the joint house committee. But then the minister says, 'Well, we'll have another joint house committee'. Of course, that committee would effectively be a morning tea so that they can endorse this quick and dirty arrangement that has been entered into between institutionalised Greens, who want to institutionalise their position within this parliament, and a conservative government that want to purge dissidents in this chamber. Of course, this is exactly what this is about.

Where did we learn about all of this? Well, you have to rely on media speculation. It is not about openness and transparency. It is not about allowing people to have a look at the details of these measures. It is about exercising a political agenda that the government have in place so that they can pursue a political agenda to get rid of those that have a different view about the nature of the conservative policies that they are pursuing. Now, of course, we have the Greens to tell us how virtuous they are. They tell us how pure they are. Senator Di Natale, you are like a virgin in a brothel. You behave in such a way that you try to present to the Australian people something you are not. You are nothing but a political opportunist.