Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a very short response. I trust that Senator Cormann, since he's been given leave, will give Senator Keneally the courtesy he has been demonstrated.

Leave granted.

I simply want to make two points. The first is that the Leader of the Government in the Senate requested time to respond to how he suggested he'd been misrepresented. He's used that time to get to a personal attack on the motivations of the Deputy Leader of the Opposition in the Senate, and that is not appropriate. That is not appropriate. If he's going to use the courtesies of the Senate to do that, he should be upfront about doing so.

Senator Cormann interjecting—

You impugned her motivation. It is a personal attack, and that was not warranted.

The second point I would make is that it is all very well for the Leader of the Government in the Senate to come in here and laud the bipartisanship of the PJCIS. The people who sought to undermine the bipartisanship of the PJCIS were the coalition and, in particular, his mate Peter Dutton, for whom he couldn't count the numbers. So do not come in here and cloak yourselves in bipartisanship when it suits you.