Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I just want you to cast your minds back to three weeks ago. The Senate was sitting around with nothing to do. Three weeks ago, we were in this place trying to work out what we were doing here. I think we have this nonsense of an address-in-reply that was going on for days. There was about a week where we just had people standing up and basically speaking nonsense. That was for a week.

Here we are, a couple of days away from ending the sitting schedule, and we are being forced now to sit until midnight tomorrow night and god knows what time tonight. How on earth do you explain that? How do you explain that? The only way to explain it is that basically this place is being run by a bunch of incompetents. There is no other way to explain it. Three weeks ago, we had nothing to do. We had speech after speech after speech. It was like an episode of Seinfeld: it was a show about nothing. Here we are, with a few days to go, and we are being told this business is so important that we have got to sit here until midnight tomorrow night. God knows what time we are going to sit until to tonight. It is unbelievable.

We have come to expect that from the government. These guys are bumbling around. They are a government in search of an agenda at the moment. They finally stumbled on the ABCC. They did it in the election to the lead-up to the election campaign. They thought they had the two very important issues, but they did not mention them—not once—during the election campaign. They were the issues that dare not speak their name. Then we come back here and they are not mentioned it at all. With a few days to go, then suddenly they are the most important issues facing the nation—for goodness sake! We have come to expect it from this mob over here. They have got the reverse Midas touch. Everything they touch turns to crap!

But these motions do not get up with just the government on their own. These are motions that require the support of the crossbench. I was reading through reporting today that said, in return for Senator Leyonhjelm's support, he is guaranteed to have open board meetings within the ABC and SBS. You explain to me how on earth those two things are vaguely related. Maybe he got ABC and ABCC mixed up—he forgot a 'C'. But really—you are entering into a deal with Senator Leyonhjelm on an issue, completely unrelated to this bill, that somehow stipulates that the public broadcaster needs to have open meetings? This place has descended into farce—absolute farce.

Look at Senator Xenophon. I have lost track of the number of speeches that Senator Xenophon has given in this place talking to us about due process and how we cannot afford to gag debate and how we have to give all of these issues their due consideration and here he is supporting a motion that forces us to stay here till midnight—on the back of last week, when we were here till 2.30 in the morning debating the registered organisations bill, a bill no-one even cares about except for this mob over here. It was so urgent that we had to be here till 2.30 in the morning to sort it out. So that is Senator Xenophon—a man who thinks process is so important and that the Senate is the house of review. And now we have been told that a bunch of amendments have been stitched up in secret and we are going to be forced to consider those in the early hours of the morning. Please, give us a break. Senator Xenophon is the champion for South Australia, a man who believes it is so important that we ensure the Murray-Darling gets looked after. What has been agreed to on that front? Five hundred gigalitres have been ripped out of the Murray-Darling. We already know that that river system is dying—3,200 gigalitres is the bare threshold to keep those rivers alive—and now we are led to believe that somehow there is some agreement that is going to make sure that the Murray gets its flows.

Then we have the issue of steel procurement. One of the Greens amendments that we will be putting forward through this bill is to ensure that Australian steel is used in Australian projects. Again, this is an opportunity for Senator Xenophon to back up his rhetoric with reality—with his vote. We do not know what this bill does. We do not know what has been agreed to. This is a farce. You should be ashamed of yourself for putting this through at this hour.