Lee Rhiannon (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

This amendment from the opposition is actually another stunt. We have seen here Senator Wong present it in an apparently very responsible way, but when you look into the details of it what she is making out starts to fall away. This amendment would if passed extend the implementation until 19 July this year. There is no reason for that extension. The Australian Electoral Commission have given advice that they need three months, and that is what is set out at the moment. We will come to the Greens amendment about 1 July later on, but that gives approximately three months. That is what we have heard time and time again is what is needed. Clearly, we need to have this legislation in place as quickly as possible. We are about to pass it. The AEC needs three months, and then it should be ready to go, but this needs to be in place for the next election. But, again, we know that Labor have deserted addressing democratic reforms.

In the context of Senator Wong's comments we also need to address this issue about the double dissolution. I thought the interjections were interesting to note; Senator Wong again suddenly remembers that she is supposed to be fighting the Turnbull government here. What have they been doing for days and days, amping it up every time? Team C came in this morning and was a little bit off-message at times. Yes, in the early hours of the morning it gets tough for all of us. But, seriously, it was a further real setback for Labor. But, within that context, they really ramped it up about the Greens. There was not a mention about the coalition. It was just hammer, hammer, hammer. They go on about how we could be the cause of a double dissolution. A double-D can be called at any time—you know that and we know that—so trying to get out there with the public, particularly with unions, making out that we are the dastardly ones—

Senator Cameron interjecting—

Yes, and I am happy to acknowledge Senator Cameron at this point, because I was now going to move on to the ABCC. This is part of the scare tactics: Senate voting reform is terrible and they are opening it up to the ABCC—

An honourable senator interjecting—

That will open it up to a double dissolution. Let's look at the ABCC. Certainly it is a shocking institution that should never have been formed and should have been abolished immediately. It is worth going into some of its history. The ABCC came in under the Howard government. The Rudd government was elected in 2007. What happened? Labor did not immediately get rid of it. It was the Greens—I think it was actually Senator Siewert—who introduced the first bill to get rid of the ABCC in its entirety. That was what we gave notice of. That bill was done. Why did we do it? We did it because Labor were not moving to get rid of the ABCC. Then there was the Labor coup and in came the Gillard government and we got the Fair Work Commission. But never did they get rid of every aspect of the ABCC. Senator Cameron knows that, Senator Wong knows that and all the Labor senators should know that.

Then, what did they do yesterday? Or maybe it is still today—it is still today, isn't it? What did they do with the vote earlier in the week about the ABCC? Remember that this is part of this stunt that Labor engineered. When they saw that we were bringing on Senate voting reform and that there was a good chance that these reforms were going to be adopted, Labor came up with all their tactics. You can divide them into two lots. There are wedges—they have tried to wedge us—and then there have been their attempts to block.

The wedges have been around the ABCC, coal seam gas, marriage equality and donations. Regarding the ABCC, what did they do when they tried to bring that to a vote? They tried to say, 'The Greens are so shocking because they are not voting to support their own legislation.' We have got an absolutely solid record on those four issues: political donations reform, banning coal seam gas, standing up a marriage equality and opposition to the ABCC. It is a clear, solid position. Why has Labor brought those in this week? It is not because of an interest in actually achieving marriage equality—