Simon Birmingham (SA, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Foreign Affairs) Share this | Hansard source

 I acknowledge the point of order there. But of course, it's gymnastics for which Senator Whish-Wilson and the Greens deserve a gold medal—gymnastics for the backflipping that they are performing through the passage of this guillotine and the motions they've put in place. The Greens—the ultimate arbiters and judges of transparency and accountability, well jeez, with a triple-pike backflip we've seen across the chamber as they're happy to shut down debate and for there to be absolutely no consideration or detail or scrutiny applied. The Greens are doing that on bills that you would have thought they would want to stand strong. On bills that you would have thought they would want to apply scrutiny to the Labor Party. That is what drives the suspicion levels so high about the deal that's been done.

The idea that the Australian Greens will just cosy up to the Labor Party and miss out on the chance to scrutinise legislation in relation to live animal exports raises suspicion levels right through the roof. It means there's got to be something that has been done as a deal between the Labor Party and the Greens. They could not have come to this sort of accommodation, where the Greens just wave away all of their rights to be outraged in relation to what the government is doing, urge the government to go further and argue for their passionate amendments. But instead, obviously, on long-lunch Friday, the Greens are eager to hit the vegan restaurant and to find the opportunity to get out of here as quickly as they can, take whatever prize has been offered in front of them by the Labor Party and trade away the chance for scrutiny—to trade away this bill, to trade away social security bills, to trade away their apparent convictions for transparency, and instead, to just be happy to get out of here, rather than do their jobs. Shame on them.