Nick McKim (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I presume Senator Paterson will be okay with me taking that interjection. I do note that there is an amendment from Senator Paterson to refer this bill to a committee, albeit after the bill has passed. If there was a genuine desire to subject this bill to adequate scrutiny, they would refer the bill to a committee before it passes. I also pause to note that Senator Paterson is proposing to refer it to a committee that is a closed shop and doesn't have a representative of the Australian Greens or, indeed, the entire crossbench of both houses of this parliament. I know Senator Paterson has heard my arguments on this matter, probably on more than one occasion in the past, as has Senator Cash, so I won't reprise all of those arguments today but will simply say that I genuinely believe that that committee would benefit from input from the crossbench and from having a member of the crossbench. We will listen to the discussion that will transpire on that, so I won't declare a position on it during this speech. It's under active consideration, Senator Paterson; that's the most I can give you on that at the moment.

In conclusion, what this country needs is a charter of rights, and it would be preferable to have it embedded into the Constitution. We all know the difficulty of making constitutional change without multiparty political support in this country, and I have no doubt that that multiparty support would not be forthcoming for a constitutionally embedded charter of rights. On that basis, the Greens would be happy, in the interim, with a legislated charter of rights. If we had such a thing, we would not see the ongoing erosion of human, civil and political rights in this country that we have seen over the recent years.