Larissa Waters (Queensland, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thanks, President. And just in relation to the matter that the Leader of the Opposition in the Senate raised about whether your withdrawal of the call was appropriate, there were four instances, President, where you asked Senator Hanson to withdraw and each time she backchatted and did not respect your request and defied your ruling. Our party believes it is entirely appropriate that the call was withdrawn, and the Procedure Committee may well look at this.

When we finally have the enforcement body that will enforce the behaviour code—of which clause 11 says, 'Don't discriminate against people on the grounds of race, religion, gender or age'—there will be a range of sanctions, consequences that should and will apply to people, for racial discrimination, for sex discrimination, for discrimination of any kind, as is appropriate. That will include withdrawal of the call. It will include being forced to make an apology. It might even include being removed from positions that you might hold on committees—serious implications. That's what accountability looks like. That's why we need this behaviour code to be enforceable, not just something where we rely on the good faith of people to comply with it. That's why we need the Independent Parliamentary Standards Commission, which is overdue. It was due to be established last month. It's late. We are urging both of the large parties in this place to work collaboratively to get that independent commission up and running so that it's not up to us to stand up for our colleague when racist language is used to impugn her, so that that's actually a standard that we are all bound by that is independently enforced. Let's set the standard in this place for the rest of the nation, because people deserve to be safe and feel safe.