Matthew Canavan (Queensland, Liberal National Party) Share this | Hansard source

While speaking to the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission report for 2019-20 I take this opportunity today to express the importance of the Australian Charities and Not-for-profits Commission. It does important work in this country to establish trust in charities. Many Australians donate to charities, and they want to know that they can trust that those charities are working in a way that progresses our national interests.

Unfortunately, this afternoon we saw a spectacle in the Senate where the Australian Labor Party teamed up once again with the Australian Greens to back charities that are more interested in breaking the law and stopping people's jobs rather than actually support law-abiding charities in this country. There is no doubt that there are charities out there that routinely break our laws. We've seen a number of them over the past decade. We had Greenpeace here in Canberra destroy a genetically modified wheat crop. They remain on the charities list despite that law breaking. They often threaten to do it again by trespassing on property.

We saw a few months ago the extinction rebellion movement spray painting this very building. Admittedly it isn't an organisation that's on the charity list but it is definitely supported and waved on by charities. What did they get away with? The ACT Magistrates Court gave them a $20 fine. You get thousands of dollars of fines for not wearing your mask, but you get only a $20 fine in this country if you spray paint our national parliament. What a joke. It is a joke that the Australian Labor Party have lined up with today. Those are their friends.

I have a good mate in Rockhampton, Robert Schwarten. He is a member of the Labor Party. He was the member for Rockhampton. He is a good man, who is often despondent about where the modern Labor Party has gone. He has a piece in the Courier-Mail today. He says: 'It's all good. We've rediscovered coal. We support coal jobs now. Matt Canavan has no platform anymore.' Robert Schwarten was undermined down here in Canberra because within hours of him saying that the Labor Party now support labourers—they have discovered labourers—the Labor Party teamed up with the Australian Greens once again to put the jobs of labourers at risk and to side with the lawbreakers of this country. That's what the Labor Party are for these days. They are for those people who like to break the law. The profession of some of these charities is just breaking the law. They're supported and facilitated by willing participants from the Australian Labor Party.

My message to those Australians who are working hard for this nation, earning a wage and turning up for work every day is: don't put your faith in the Australian Labor Party. They're not going to back your job. They're not going to support you. They're always going to back the Australian Greens, because that's how they get a job. The Australian Labor Party get their jobs through the Green preferences and the backroom deals with the Greens. They don't care about your job; they only care about their jobs.

We're seeing an uptick in all of this lawbreaking activity. We have had green activist groups tie themselves to coal loaders and trains over the past week in Newcastle, showing gross contempt for the laws of this country and disrupting the exports that fund our nation and help us get through this pandemic. These are the people the Australian Labor Party are siding up to. We know that superglue sales are about to go through the roof. In the lead-up to the election Bunnings is going to do a great trade in superglue because all of these Greta Thunberg followers are going to be supergluing themselves to the streets, disrupting our cities and stopping law-abiding people getting to work. The Labor Party have just armed them. By voting against these laws that would have cracked down on this activity the Labor Party have effectively just given them truckloads of superglue to disrupt this country and our nation. That's what the Labor Party have done today, and it's an absolute disgrace.

If you are a party that wants to be the government of this nation and that wants to establish the laws of this nation, you should be supporting those groups that back our laws and live by our laws and be opposed to those groups who break our laws. It's a pretty simple principle. It's a principle the Australian Labor Party have not lived up to today, showing that they are not a party that is ready for government, because they are still engaged in the juvenile activities of a university campus, running around with these activists who show no regard for the hardworking men and women of this nation. I thought the Australian Labor Party might have learnt their lesson, but they clearly have not. Actions speak a lot louder than words, and today the Labor Party, in action, have teamed up with the Greens.