Linda Reynolds (WA, Liberal Party, Assistant Minister for Home Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Whish-Wilson, if you're going to ask me a question, please allow me to answer the question. Again, I'll provide the same answers that I've provided over probably seven hours of questioning on the same issues. This is a treaty that has been signed. We are now dealing, before this chamber, with the customs bills to fully enable our agreements. In relation to the issues in chapter 20 that you're talking about—the environmental considerations—the parliament has had ample opportunity to debate this. Over the course of the last two years, the provisions of the TPP have been debated, and I've gone through the various inquiries in this chamber already. I think there have been at least five parliamentary inquiries. There have been over a thousand consultations with 485 separate organisations, which is incredibly comprehensive. It is the most comprehensive engagement and parliamentary debate on any treaty that Australia has ever been party to.

We've already dealt with a range of these issues over and over again in over seven hours of debate in this place. You and I both know that the questions you just asked are far more appropriate for next week's Senate estimates process. But, again, go back and have a look at your own remarks in Hansard, Senator Whish-Wilson. You have already acknowledged that you have raised these issues in multiple estimates committees over multiple years, so it's not like you and the Greens have not had ample opportunity to get engaged and involved and to debate these issues. You have. We can sit here for the next several hours—I think it's taken 10 hours of the Senate's time already—and it's your right to keep us talking about the same things over and over again, but, ultimately, you are reprosecuting a treaty that was signed in March. These are customs amendment and customs tariff amendment bills. There is nothing that I have not repeated over and over again. If you keep asking the same questions, I will keep giving you the same answers, because the answers do not change, even if you do not like them.