Bridget McKenzie (Victoria, National Party, Shadow Minister for Infrastructure, Transport and Regional Development) Share this | Hansard source

I apologise. As a government, it's a great privilege to lead this country. It's a great privilege to sit around the cabinet table. It's a great privilege, but it's also a grave responsibility to not treat human lives tritely. With the decision you are making, this legislation is to pay your paymasters and to ignore the evidence and the cries from remote communities.

You don't want to listen to me—I'm a white chick from Victoria—but you need to listen to the Indigenous women, the Indigenous children and the Indigenous communities for whom this policy has made a difference. What you're actually doing is giving the power back to men in these communities who do no have the interests of their families or their children at heart and who, because of the alcohol fuelled culture and violence in some of these communities, will leave future generations of Indigenous children to never reach their potential.

It's an indictment on you. I wish you'd change your mind. I won't be supporting the bill