Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Madam Acting Deputy President. I was just reminding the chamber that in the good old days the Labor Party was a staunch defender of human and civil rights in this place, and every time this government has come in and moved to erode fundamental human and civil rights that tens of thousands of Australians fought and died for over the course of the last century—including some members of my family, I might add—you fall in a screaming heap, because that is just what you do, because you would prefer to play the politics rather than do the right thing. That is what you are exposed once again as doing: you are playing the politics rather than doing the right thing. If you wanted to do the right thing, you would not all of a sudden have woken up from your marriage equality slumber this week; you would treat that issue—