Richard Colbeck (Tasmania, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

I seek leave to make a short statement.

Leave granted.

The matter that Senator Birmingham has raised is an important matter for every senator in this chamber. Our right to speak in this place is fundamental to the reason that we're all here. I agree with senators in respect of the way that we speak and the way that we refer to colleagues in the chamber. I agree that there is a way for us to go in improving that, and I'm supporting that process. But the fundamental right of any senator to speak in here, as a representative elected by the Australian people, should not be able to be removed without some process of this chamber. That's what our standing orders do. It's important that our standing orders properly support that process.

I acknowledge, President, that yesterday there were a particular set of circumstances that you were looking to manage at a point in time, but it is an important protection for every single one of us that we have the opportunity to stand in this place to seek the call and to speak, and then the chamber has the opportunity to express its view in relation to that. Anything that takes away from that diminishes the fundamental tenets of this place and why we are sent here. So I would just like to support and reaffirm the view that we should be making sure that it is not possible for any single senator—despite the fact that they might be sitting in the chair, albeit at the pleasure of this place—to remove the opportunity for any one of us, from any party, to stand in this place to seek the call to make a contribution. That's why we are here. That needs to be protected at all costs. Standards should apply, absolutely, and that's what the debate is about, and we cannot allow the right of any senator to stand in this place to speak to get caught up in a particular issue, because that then undermines the whole purpose and the reason that we're here. I understand that there's real hurt in relation to some of the things that have been said, and I am sympathetic to that hurt. I genuinely am.