Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Minister for Northern Australia) Share this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Thanks, Senator Watt, but I would encourage you to put your comments through the chair.

Mr Temporary Chairman, unlike Senator Hanson, you and I did not get ourselves elected to Canberra to give ourselves a pay rise. We don't run around our respective states misleading people and pretending that we care about them only to get ourselves elected and give ourselves a pay rise, like Senator Hanson has done. The truth about what we've just seen this morning is that Senator Hanson has been caught out. Senator Hanson has been exposed as the fraud that she always has been, in claiming to support battlers but, in fact, only trying to help herself. She has been shamed into coming down into this chamber—running down into this chamber, by her own admission—to try to fiddle with this amendment that she put together yesterday, because she's been caught out trying to use taxpayers' money to give herself this pay rise.

Those of us who are from Queensland and have been watching Senator Hanson in action have been used to her having her snout in the trough for a very long time. She has had her snout in the public trough for over 20 years. Usually it's to try to access electoral funds that are meant to go to her party to use instead for her own personal benefit. What's different this time—

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Senator Watt—

is that she's got her snout in the trough to benefit herself personally.

The TEMPORARY CHAIR: Senator Watt. Thank you. Senator Hanson.