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

Thank you, Acting Deputy President Chandler. I have been trying to articulate—and I would like to go into more detail in the second reading—the matters of principle we have. The matters of principle we have include: democratic control of non-government civil society organisations: concerns about the overreach of giving extraordinary powers to just one minister; concerns about removing all natural justice through a scheme that the minister can amend; the inability to work out a way of ensuring, if there is a change of government, that Minister Cash can't have unilateral control over this; dealing with the concerns of misogyny; and dealing with the concerns of violence—matters of real principle.

With this motion, we get a little insight into the brain that is the coalition and a little insight into the brain that is the Labor Party. They both genuinely think that, for the Greens, this is somehow about some donations. You genuinely think that. I suppose what I would say to that is: it goes to show what you are. You are showing what you are. These are the kinds of quiet little internal thoughts you should keep quiet, because we now know what it is for the coalition and we now know what it is for the Labor Party: you make the mistake of thinking that we engage in politics in this place in the way that you engage in politics, because for you it is about the money. For the coalition is about the money going to the Labor, and for Labor it is about the money going to them or to some other political party. Well, it has never been about the money for us; it is about matters of principle. You can't comprehend that fact.