Anne Ruston (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Health and Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I acknowledge the extraordinarily important role that the committees of this place play in making sure that we have the most robust process we can have to investigate issues that are of importance to all Australians. I think that the role of the Senate is undermined by the kind of contribution that we just heard from Senator Shoebridge. I think that to come in here and lecture somebody simply because they had a view contrary to that of somebody else in this chamber, to somehow suggest that they're a lesser person and to use derogatory terms to describe them reflects very badly on Senator Shoebridge—more so than on those people who have put forward this motion.

I have something to say to Senator Roberts, who obviously feels very strongly about this issue, and to others who have made a contribution about the importance, as they think, of shining light on issues that have significant impact on Australia going forward and particularly on our place in the global environment. I thank you, Senator Roberts, for bringing forward this important issue. I believe that as a Senate we shouldn't be standing in the way of scrutinising very important issues. We are never all going to agree on any issue. That is the beauty of this place. But the minute we start shying away from having a genuine debate and getting the experts in, which is how the committee process works, I think we are letting the Australian public down and not delivering what this chamber has been designed, in the first place, to do. So, Senator Roberts, the coalition will be supporting your reference, because that's exactly what it is. It is a reference. It gives us the ability to go into more detail and investigate the very important concerns that have been raised by everybody in this chamber about the issue that is the matter of substance of this reference.

I would also put on the record that coalition governments have never compromised, and will never in the future compromise, the interests of Australia or its sovereignty in anything they do, and we would make sure that we would be very strongly of that view right the way through. We support transparency. This is something that's really quite interesting when you consider the platform on which those opposite were elected to this place. They went out to the election and they trumpeted transparency from the hilltops, but I've got to tell you it is really quite extraordinary that, since we have been in this place, there has been nothing that has been less transparent than this Albanese Labor government. We stand for transparency on this side of the chamber, and for that reason we will be supporting the reference, as we almost always support references.