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

As Senator Duniam just raised, you are saying, 'If we consider your amendments'—it would be good if you let us have a look at your amendments, because it's pretty hard to consider them when we don't even know what they are. I would suggest the reason you're not providing us with those amendments now is that you know they're going to expose the full extent of your dirty deal with the Greens to get this bill through this place. We already know from the conversations we've seen in the papers, the comments by Mr Bandt in the other place, about the fact he's going to shut down 116 coal and gas projects that are in the pipeline, and yet Mr Bowen tells us: 'Oh no, nothing's going to happen here. It's all going to be fine. This is not going to disrupt everything. This is just a nice little tweak that'll mean that we've, all of a sudden, got our emissions targets met in five minutes.' I can tell you that is not the case.

The hypocrisy of the Greens to come in here and dictate to us that somehow it's okay for them to have their private senators time this morning, but it's not okay for us to have ours tomorrow—reflect on this. I would actually suggest you reflect on this, because the deal you've done with the devil actually makes you part of the devil's clan in this instance. You've now signed yourself up to saying that it's okay for you to actually take advantage of something, but you will deny the rest of the non-government senators in this place that same privilege. That is absolutely outrageous.

We've once again seen, because you have the numbers—and we acknowledge that the numbers exist between the Labor Party and the Greens in their coalition government over there—that you're happy to come in here and trash the processes and protocols of this chamber. With respect to the Greens, I did ask them if they would support us in having an equitable reinstatement of private senators' time. I thought I did it in a respectful way, and I'm disappointed that Senator Hanson-Young would come in here and suggest in some way that I wasn't respectful. I think I've always been respectful in my dealings with you, Senator Hanson-Young.

You are in charge of the time in this chamber. You can manage it respectfully, you can manage it by respecting the protocols and the conventions of this place, or you can come in here and you can trash it at your will. But just remember, you will not always be in government and the damage that you do to this place and this institution will be on your head for decades to come. This is a very sad indictment on this government and their preparedness to do whatever it takes to get their way. It is shameful.