Cory Bernardi (SA, Australian Conservatives) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Senator Gallagher. I do appreciate your extending of the olive branch of cooperation. However, these things are not debated on a regular basis in matters of public importance or at any other time because people on that side of the chamber, including the Greens and yourselves, seek to game the system to prevent the crossbench from actually getting their motions up. Those of us who only have one vote only get to put one submission in, whereas you, the Greens and others put multiple submissions in, trying to game the system.

Opposition senators interjecting—

So, please, don't lecture me about the opportunities to debate these things. If you want to debate these things, let's have a discussion about it and a debate about it. You can perhaps put the motion in about the merits of communism tomorrow, if that's what you feel like—right? But the fact is that this is an ideology that has destroyed hundreds of millions of lives and you don't want to have a motion where we say that it's terrible and that we should be condemning it.