David Shoebridge (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

They are watching Senator Birmingham's cunning plan to prevent me speaking on a bill and saying that you want to prevent us speaking on a bill. Look at the sea of cameras waiting to see the cunning Birmingham plan, saying how you're preventing me from speaking on a bill. You want me to speak on a bill, but you don't want me to speak on the bill. And you want to have another debate after this, to prevent me from speaking on the bill. Who is the genius in the coalition party room who came up with this? All credit to you. It's probably the same genius who's giving Senator Watt the idea to respond to a substantive issue with memes. The government's response to a substantive issue, and issues of principle, is a bunch of Labor Party memes.

Let's be clear what we're not talking about here. The Greens have said, from day one, in every instance where issues of principle come before this parliament, that we will always oppose violence in the workplace and always support action to address sexism and misogyny—every single time. There are no doubt issues—and we would like to get to this discussion in the second reading debate—incredibly important and very concerning issues about union behaviour. They're absolutely, deeply concerning. But we're not talking about them now; we're talking about the Simon Birmingham double-triple pike with half belly flop into the water that you want to spend the next hour doing. This is zero points for difficulty from the judging panel for your half-triple pike attempt to prevent the matter coming on for debate—zero points for difficulty and, in fact, zero points for style or substance.