Sam Dastyari (NSW, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

Here we are again—get to the end of the sitting year and you have a dirty deal being done by the Greens to sell out, once again, at the last minute. Stop doing deals with the Liberals! It ends badly. It always ends badly! Last time you did this you lost a senator. You had one more senator. Last time you threw Senator Simms under the bus. Occasionally in this place you actually have to stick to something, stay firm and stay principled.

I have history as a former general secretary of the New South Wales Labor Party. I know a thing or two about doing deals. Do not do every deal they come to you with; actually negotiate for something better. You did it last time and you have done it again. At the end of last year you went soft on corporate tax. In May this year you went soft on Senate voting reform, and now you are selling out on backpacker tax. Time and time again, this is a Greens party that goes weak whenever things gets tough.

We heard from Senator Di Natale. I will let you in on a little bit of a secret: I am a bit of a fan of Senator Di Natale. I actually quite like him. But every time I want to like Senator Di Natale, every time I want to support him, he always disappoints me. He always end up doing it. I feel like a burnt lover who has been left at the altar. We come up with agreements, we work together, we develop policies and we wrongly work under the assumption time and time again that the Greens are actually going to stand for something, stick to their principles and stick to their agreements. But they are a political party that sell out at the first opportunity. They are a political party that go weak and dumps on their own causes. Why? We heard what Senator Di Natale said himself. He said, 'If we didn't do this, the government would decide.' No. They would have negotiated. That is the point. You stay firm to get the best deal. But the Greens party do not do that any more. They do not stand for anything anymore. The Greens party sell out and go weak at the first opportunity they have.

I do not blame the coalition. They are just trying to get the deal they want. That is their business. It is not surprising. But for a party that purports to be from the centre left to keep selling out to the conservative side of politics whenever things get hard is disheartening. It hurts. Time and time again the Greens make commitments. They do press conference after press conference. I am disappointed. We are getting to the end of the year. We are at the Christmas period. Rather than leaving this place with some Christmas joy and some Christmas cheer, we have a disappointing Greens sell-out. This is exactly what they did at the end of the last session last year. This is what they did that led to the double-D election. They jump up and down about the four One Nation senators, but they would not be here if the Greens had not done one of their dirty deals with the Liberal Party around May this year. In fact, we would probably still have another Greens senator.