Janet Rice (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

by leave—This is an appalling use of Senate process, and it is leaving lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students in despair. Three-quarters of the Australian community want to see discrimination ended in schools, full stop—no ifs or buts—and they want it to end now. The Prime Minister himself said, before the Wentworth by-election, that it was urgent to act to end discrimination now. Yet we have just seen this appalling use of Senate process. This bill has been pushed off into the long grass.

We had the opportunity today to change our laws for the better, so that lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender students would have been protected, would have felt safe and would have felt supported in their school communities regardless of what school they went to. But the appalling actions of this government, together with Centre Alliance—who have shown their true colours in what they are doing today—have meant that this opportunity is passing us by. The Greens believed that we had the numbers in this place to end discrimination against teachers as well. But the government, coupled with Centre Alliance, is not allowing this debate to occur and not allowing a vote to occur today. It is an absolute travesty and it is incredibly sad for those many people in our community—the same people who fought a year ago for marriage equality—who were hoping that, a year later, as part of the anniversary of marriage equality, we would act to end discrimination and support young people in all of our schools. But it is not to be, because of the outrageous actions of this government and the Centre Alliance senators.