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

Thank you, because I am indeed being relevant to the topic. I will remind Senator Di Natale, because he may not have been listening at the time in the earlier discussion, about commencement dates, because we have had several different commencement dates proposed during this process. Of course, the first issue is: are these amendments competent? We have reflected on other competency issues in the course of this debate, and I think it is quite relevant to make those points now.

And then we move on to the issue of credibility, and that is an important consideration because, on the one hand, Senator Rhiannon says this will deliver the around three months that the AEC say they need. We know from at least two or three occasions of reviewing the Hansard of the JSCEM inquiry that that is a very generous description of what the AEC said. So, no, credibility is a very important issue.

But I want to remind Senator Di Natale, since he did not seem to think credibility was such an issue, that Senator Rhiannon was so angry with Senator Di Natale when he changed the Greens policy to support genetically modified organisms that she made a spiteful donation to an anti-GMO organisation called Gene Ethics so that they could campaign against her leader's announcement and campaign against her own party's policy. So much for the pretence of Greens unity that has been here! So much for that pretence!