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

It's pretty clear what's going on here. What we've got is a bill from a government that's prepared to establish a slush fund for the National Party so that it can continue to hand out money to its big corporate irrigator mates to do nothing about the underlying problem of drought and nothing about dangerous climate change, and we've got the Labor Party, who are giving the government everything that it wants. What on earth is going on here? You lost an election, and you're on track to lose the next one if you keep giving this mob everything that it wants. Take a stand and show a bit of courage, for goodness sake.

You said, in your opposition to this bill, that you were concerned that money was coming out of infrastructure, and that was the right concern. You were absolutely spot on that you've got a government prepared to rip money out of public infrastructure and funnel it into what is a National Party rort—another one. We saw what they did with the Murray-Darling Basin. They basically decided that they were going to rip off taxpayers, they were going to reward some of their biggest corporate donors and they were going to refuse to deal with the substantial issues when it came to drought and its impact on the Murray-Darling Basin.

You've said you don't support money being ripped out of infrastructure. You also said in the last chamber—and you were absolutely right in the lower house—that, unless you've got a plan to deal with climate change, you've got no plan to deal with drought. Again: spot on. Senator Whish-Wilson moved an amendment that you supported in the lower house, which it appears you've now rejected here. And now, when it comes to funding for infrastructure, you're going to roll over again.

See, it doesn't matter what you say; it matters what you do. You vote with the government, despite criticising them for a bill that you know is going to do nothing to fix the issue of climate change, which is fuelling drought; a bill that you know is going to put more power in the hands of a minister who's shown himself to be completely incapable of allocating funding on the basis of what's required rather than rewarding donors and mates. You roll over; you capitulate; you give in again. You did it on the foreign fighters legislation. You're doing it now on this drought legislation. Before the election, you refused to support this bill. Now, after the election, you're going to support it without even passing an amendment that you yourself support.

People right around the country are asking themselves, 'What the hell does the Labor Party stand for anymore?' People around the country are saying: 'We need an opposition to stand up to these guys. We need an opposition that's prepared to say: "We don't agree with you. This is why. We're going to go out and fight for our position."' You don't beat the conservatives by becoming a conservative. It's one thing to say you don't support what they're doing; it's another thing altogether to vote for what they're doing, and that's what you're doing right now. We're seeing this play out over and over and over again. 'We don't support the government's legislation on this drought bill. We don't support it, because they've got no plan to deal with climate change, they're ripping money out of infrastructure, they're putting too much money in the minister's hands.' Then vote against it! Vote against it! You don't support action on foreign fighters, because it ignores the recommendations of the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security. A bipartisan committee—that we don't like, because it's a closed shop—makes a set of bipartisan recommendations and is ignored by Peter Dutton, so you go out publicly and say, 'We don't like it.' But what do you do? You vote for it. Take a stand. Show some courage. You lost an election. This wasn't a takeover of the Labor Party; you lost an election.

Here we've got a sensible amendment from Senator Janet Rice that says, 'If you want to fund drought, you make sure you don't rip money out of infrastructure funding.' We had a sensible amendment that said, 'If the minister's going to fund a range of projects, they should at least be advised by a group of experts with knowledge and expertise in this field.' You voted against that. And now it looks like you're about to vote against all of the things that you said were wrong with this bill. The Australian people right now are asking, 'What does the Labor Party stand for?' We want someone to take it up to this mob, and, if you won't, we will.

The CHAIR: The question is that the amendments (1) to (3), (5) and (6) on sheet 8702 be agreed to.