Pauline Hanson (Queensland, Pauline Hanson's One Nation Party) Share this | Hansard source

I won't keep this going. I have my grave concerns about this bill. I think you're giving immunity to judges when they need to be made accountable. I think I've made my comments quite strongly on that. My concern is for the general public—that they don't have recourse anywhere. You're shutting the gate on them. You're not making these judges accountable to the public, and it's a real shame. It's a closed shop, and I hear that constantly.

People are distraught. They don't know where to go. They turn to politicians. I tell them all the time that it's a separation of power, that we can't get involved in this and that they have to keep fighting on. Like I said, when I talk to people on the telephone or when I get called aside in a shopping centre or wherever I go, people tell me their stories of how they've been separated from their families, from their children. They're distraught. They're at the bones of their backside; they've got no more left in them. They've got no money. They've lost their houses, and this just goes on and on. Yet you're in this chamber telling me that you're going to give the judges immunity. Where's the immunity for the public?

You passed further legislation just last week on the family law courts. You're going to do more damage to the families there. What's going to happen in child support? Who knows what you're going to do with that one when you bring that bill before this parliament! I feel that the people of Australia haven't been listened to. You don't have the answers. Like I said, you're just protecting the judges, who are in fear, who don't want to be sued. How many judges have been sued? One. Therefore we must make sure that it doesn't happen to another judge. Yet hundreds of thousands of people have been affected by the court system and what it's done to the people of Australia.

I don't believe this. You're so quick to move to protect the judges from being sued but you don't worry about the Australian people. You don't worry about getting it right in your family bills and law bills that are being passed in this place. It's a real shame, and I'm sure with the next one you pull up, the child support bill, you'll be doing the same—slapping people in the face.

Anyway, I've made my point here. I'm sure that the coalition and Labor will cuddle up beside each other on this bill again and pass it with no real oversight or thinking about what the public have to deal with now. One Nation will be opposing this.