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

by leave—In all aspects of life there is always a time to draw a line in the sand, and I welcome the fact that this Senate has finally drawn a line in the sand to the reprehensible and repeated disruptive and disrespectful conduct of Senator Thorpe. Of course, this decision just taken relates to the incident that occurred this morning which well and truly crossed a line in that it entered the domain of physical conduct in this chamber, not just the type of verbal conduct that we have so repeatedly seen. Physical conduct towards another senator can have no place and no tolerance in this place.

But it was, as Senator Wong acknowledged, a pattern of escalating and disrespectful behaviour—escalatory behaviour on repeated occasions that showed complete and repeated disrespect for you, President, in the chair and for all fellow senators. But, perhaps even more importantly, it created a workplace environment for clerks, for attendants, for security and for others around this chamber where they too felt at least uncomfortable and potentially worse. That is why it was so important to draw the line in the sand today and to be clear that there are standards this chamber will uphold and that those standards should be reflective of what any other workplace would expect. It is a special privilege to stand in this place as a senator. We get special privileges from standing in this place as a senator, and we should respect those privileges and show respect to one another when we exercise those privileges.

President, it is beyond disappointing. It is a shameful double standard that we just saw from the Greens in opposing the setting of that standard and the drawing of the line that we had in this vote. The Greens would in no other circumstances tolerate from any major party senator—be they a Labor senator, Liberal senator or Nats senator—or, indeed, most of the crossbench—

Opposition senators: Hear, hear!

An opposition senator: That's right.