David Leyonhjelm (NSW, Liberal Democratic Party) Share this | Hansard source

This debate is not about discrimination; it's about procedure. We can deal with matters such as this—discrimination in schools—in motions in the normal way. A better way to deal with an issue like this would be an MPI. But we don't have to deal with it on a Monday morning as a suspension motion that is eating into other time.

When any other party, any other senator in this place, wants to introduce a subject like this into the debate, they follow procedure. The government, Labor, the Greens, the Conservatives, One Nation, myself as the Liberal Democrats, Katter's Australia Party, the United Australia Party and Centre Alliance: we all put a motion on notice and then we deal with it the next day. One senator in this place doesn't think that applies to him. That senator is Senator Hinch. What he does is tweet, 'I'm going to move on Monday for a motion to withdraw funding from schools if they discriminate.' When I pointed out to him in a follow-up tweet that he couldn't do that, that he had to lodge it on Monday and consider it on Tuesday, what was his response? He moves a motion to suspend on Monday morning just so that he can live up to what he said he was going to do in the tweet. That's all he's going to do. It is posturing; it is virtue signalling; it is blowing hard. The only thing missing from it so far is, 'Shame, shame, shame'.

I say: do not support this suspension motion. Allow the matter to be dealt with, preferably as an MPI, so that it can be debated. Lodge it today so that it can be considered tomorrow, like everybody else in this place does. But Senator Hinch apparently doesn't think this applies to him.