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

Pursuant to contingent notice, I move:

That the standing orders of the Senate be suspended to give precedence to the general business order of the day.

All I wanted was a couple of minutes. That's all I wanted, and we're done. Mr President, I just want a couple of minutes here. I want to make this point.

Senator Leyonhjelm's defence seems to be that he was provoked. Let's put on the record, firstly, that what Senator Leyonhjelm alleges was said is contested. Senator Hanson-Young and indeed her colleagues who heard what she said contest the nature of what Senator Leyonhjelm says was said to him. But that misses the point. It entirely misses the point. There is never an excuse for the personal, vindictive attack levelled at a colleague of the Senate. There is never an excuse under any circumstances.

What Senator Leyonhjelm did was that he attempted to humiliate and intimidate one of his fellow parliamentary colleagues. He was simply asked to apologise. Instead of apologising, he went as far as to double down. He went on to several radio and television interviews and sought to capitalise on those defamatory and sexist statements.

There is never an excuse to do what Senator Leyonhjelm did. It doesn't matter what was said to him. His response was disgraceful; it was shameful; it was sexist; it was misogynist; and it was personal. Now, we can have robust debate in this place, but there is never an excuse, both within this chamber and outside of it, to exercise so-called free speech in the manner in which Senator Leyonhjelm chose to exercise it—by vilifying, intimidating and smearing the reputation of somebody who has made an enormous contribution to this place. And, at a time when we should be making this an environment that is welcoming to all people so that we have a more representative parliament, those comments undermined everything that needs to change in this place so that we welcome more women and more diversity to ensure that this place is much more representative of the people we seek to represent.

I just want to finish by saying we did not want this to happen. We did not want it to get to this point. All we sought from the outset was an apology from Senator Leyonhjelm. Instead, he chose to besmirch the reputation of somebody who has made an enormous contribution to this country. He chose to use a sexist and derogatory attack on an individual senator, and if we can't censure a senator for those actions then there's no good in having that standing order within the provisions.