Sarah Hanson-Young (SA, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you. The Greens will not be able to support the suspension, but I do accept that in this place we do need to be able to provide space for non-government senators to have a debate on issues that are important to them. I would urge the Leader of the Opposition and his frontbench team to consider the offer from the government to help facilitate in an orderly manner the safeguard bill's committee stage over the next 12 hours, and then hopefully we can get to a position where, tomorrow, private senators' time can be reinstated.

I think it's absolutely essential to ensure that the Senate does have time for private senators' space and debate. It's a fundamental part of this chamber. But what I've seen over the last 24 hours is delay after delay after delay—tactics to put off the safeguard legislation. This is just like what we saw for the last decade when the coalition was in government—delay after delay after delay on taking action on the climate crisis. We can't continue to put that at risk. That is why we put in place a routine of business in this chamber, and we should stick to that. If there is opportunity to amend it for tomorrow morning, I'm very open to it, and I'm happy to keep talking with the opposition about that. It's why I won't support the suspension now but I am happy to consider the motion later in the day.

But I would also point this out to anyone who is listening: if you want to know what the opposition's view is on the world, go back and listen to some of the speeches that were in here at 3 am this morning, because there's not an awful lot of thought or intellect coming from some people on the benches on this side. All they are doing is saying, 'The sky is falling in.' The tinfoil hat brigade is out, and the mouthpiece for the coal and gas industry was in full swing. The lunacy of some of the claims that were being made in the early hours of this morning in some regards would be laughable, but we're talking about the survival of the planet. We're talking about the climate and environment crisis that we are in. We have members from the other side who, rather than taking action, for years—for decades—have held back climate action in this country and are still dragging their knuckles along the ground, hoping that someone is listening.