Murray Watt (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Minister for Agriculture, Fisheries and Forestry) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge, the fact that you are simply filibustering debate in order to stop a vote on this bill, in order to stop the commencement of debate on the housing bill, can be made no more plain than the fact that you're not actually talking about the amendments that are currently before the chamber. You've obviously run out of questions to ask about our amendments and you're moving on to amendments that haven't even been put yet, being yours. We will, of course, have the debate about your amendments when we get to them. Clearly, you don't want to talk about our amendments because you don't want to have a vote on anything. And it's a shame, because I agree that there are a lot of people out there who are very concerned about having better whistleblower protections, and that's exactly what this bill is designed to do. We could have had that legislation passed this morning, if you had chosen to.

You made a reference to some of my comments being agitated. I am agitated about getting whistleblower protections in place, and I am agitated about building more social and affordable homes, and I'm agitated about the fact that the Greens are in league with the coalition to prevent a debate on housing being built in this country. I am pretty agitated about that because there are a lot of people out there who need homes. And there are two parties in this chamber who are stopping us from even having a debate about that, because they're dragging out the debate on this bill, which is also important. I'm more than happy to address the Greens amendments when we get to them, but how about we pass now these amendments that the government has moved, rather than continue filibustering until we reach the clock at 12.15?