Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

You claim it's biosecurity, Senator—I'll take your interjection. Firstly, two significant things happened last week. The Senate behaved as it should. We had a briefing. We got together and requested a briefing from the agricultural minister on this very serious issue. Those of us who cared and those of us who had responsibilities in this area went to the cinema and we had a comprehensive briefing from a number of professionals. I notice that a lot of the things we were told were conveniently ignored by Senator McKenzie in her contribution this morning.

The second thing we did, as mature adults elected by the Australian people to do our job and scrutinise the minister, was to get up a Senate inquiry into this exact issue. We worked together to get that so that the National Party and the Liberal Party could chair that through the rural and regional affairs committee, and we've begun the process to scrutinise the minister's response to this issue. We will be taking comprehensive evidence from witnesses and stakeholders right around the country. That's our job—that's what we were elected to do.

It's fascinating for me this morning to see what you have become. I won't say it's sad, but it's fascinating. What is sad is seeing you play politics with this issue. We were told by the department officials at the briefing that it is dangerous for you to play politics with this issue. It is dangerous for the reputation of the farmers you purport to represent in here. It's dangerous on many levels—for our trade negotiations and deals that we have with other countries, for our reputation and for our image internationally. It's dangerous for you to continue down this road when we're already doing our job to scrutinise the minister. I ask you here this morning to consider exactly what it is you are doing. You are coming in here—