Jacinta Collins (Victoria, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Cabinet Secretary) Share this | Hansard source

There are lots of things that they are just starting to learn.

I have previously advised the Senate of my concerns about the farcical half-day JSCEM hearing into the bill. I raised concerns about the risk that the government was overlooking shortcomings in its own legislation and the unintended consequences that flow from rushed legislation. By these amendments, the government has effectively admitted that I was right—that there were unintended consequences and oversights that, certainly, they had to deal with in the House. What other unintended consequences and oversights are there still within the legislation? That is a serious concern. It is shameful that this incompetent and panicked government is administering something as important as electoral law in such a shambolic fashion. As I said, back in 1918 the response of one senator to that situation, as a government was trying to ram through electoral changes, was to spend an enormous number of hours, through the night, just reading the bill. So, when people bleat that this has been a filibuster, that was a real filibuster.

The challenge we have had, and have dealt with effectively here, is to highlight the inadequacies both in process and in outcome, and we make no apology for doing that and for continuing to do that. It may leave the Greens feeling uncomfortable because they have conspired in both this process and this outcome, but, no, we will continue to do that. When the government and the Greens issue the challenge, which is, 'Oh, no, we won't gag debate; you'll have all the time that you want'—until Easter, according to the minister—of course we are going to take the time to highlight the inadequacies involved here.

It is deeply disappointing that Senator Di Natale and some of his clueless colleagues on some important points are taking part in the contempt of the parliament and the Senate's role in scrutinising legislation and to holding the government to account. Senator Di Natale is so desperate to deal himself into mainstream political relevance that he is dealing his party out of the political values that Greens' pioneer Bob Brown held so dear. I have made earlier comparisons today to former Senator Bob Brown and I think they still apply.

Senator Di Natale is pretending to be this new, reasonable moderate, but when Michael Kroger met Richard Di Natale he must have thought all his Christmases had come at once. There is a reason the surname is Natale—all his Christmases must have come at once, is what Michael Kroger would have thought when he met Richard Di Natale. Of course, this deal is what highlights—