Jacqui Lambie (Tasmania, Jacqui Lambie Network) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The world is finally waking up to the downside of social media, and thank God. I am glad government is looking at what can be done to protect our kids. But it's not only our kids that are at risk. Do you know what social media is really good at? It's really good at dividing us. It's all thumbs up or thumbs down, love or hate. It rewards opinions—strong opinions. It encourages us to hate each other. It doesn't reward someone for saying, 'I don't know what I think about that. I need more time before I decide.'

When people are struggling, dividing us is easy. The Scanlon Foundation has been mapping and tracking Australia's social cohesion for nearly 20 years and they say that we are more divided than ever. Cost-of-living pressure is creating the most hardship, with 12 per cent reporting skipping meals, 12 per cent struggling to pay rent or mortgages and 22 per cent saying they don't have enough income for medicines or health care. When people are doing it tough, blaming others and identifying a group to blame is easy. Some would say it's the oldest trick in the book. And when we have global conflicts like the war in Gaza, it's the easiest thing in the world to whip people up and channel their anger at minority groups—at Jews, at Muslims and at migrants.

What is much harder is being a leader or a political party that brings Australians together instead of tearing us apart. Since the Hamas terrorist attack on Israel on 7 October, the Greens have displayed the most despicable examples of leadership I have seen since I have been here. In my opinion, they have been behaving like the worst examples of social media. I don't think there are any Australians who aren't horrified by the plight of the hostages or the shocking suffering of the Palestinian people.

War is awful. It's always awful. It's always the innocents who suffer. Every political and community leader should do everything they can to turn the temperature down, not to light it up. But instead of working productively toward peace since the Hamas terrorist attack on 7 October, the Greens have done all they can to whip up division and whip up hate in the community.

On 18 October, just 11 days after the world learned of the horrific details of the Hamas terrorist attack—children burnt, women raped and hostages taken—the Greens were the only Australian political party that refused to support a federal parliamentary motion condemning the Hamas massacre. In November, a Greens senator was happy to be photographed with a protester holding a sign that showed a figure putting the Israeli flag in the rubbish bin alongside the words 'keep the world clean'. Adam Bandt, the Leader of the Australian Greens, has posted on his social media that protesters should continue holding the government to account by 'marching, calling, blockading'.

The Greens likes to pitch itself as the party that stands on principle. It's a party that likes to portray itself as a party of peace. Instead, they are trying to bring the war here. It is a party that apparently stands up and fights for the voiceless, but when it comes to Israel the Greens it leaves these principles at home. In the days after 7 October, instead of standing in solidarity with the traumatised Australian Jewish community, the Greens immediately aligned themselves with an ultranationalist Palestinian agenda. As Philip Mendes, professor of social policy and community development at Monash University put it: 'The Greens are progressive except when it comes to the Jews.' Apparently Jews don't count in the Greens progressive agenda. In this place we're not allowed to use props, but Greens senators often come to this place wearing the keffiyeh, a symbol of Palestinian nationalism.

The Greens like to claim they are the champions of the welfare state. They have a large block of senators in this place, but JobSeeker still hasn't gone up. They haven't suspended standing orders to call attention to Russia's illegal invasion of Ukraine. They didn't suspend standing orders when Pakistan announced they were bulldozing the homes of one million Afghan refugees, driving them back over the border into the arms of the Taliban.

Since 7 October the Greens have attempted to suspend standing orders or to introduce urgency motions on Gaza in the Senate or House of Representatives no less than 20 times. By the way, most of the motions said nothing about the hostages. These motions add up to nearly nine hours of wasted time and wasted taxpayers' money. So my question to the Greens is: do you really think these stunts do anything to bring Australians together? Do you really think it does anything to stop the suffering of Palestinians? Of course it doesn't. They are nothing more than stunts. They're stunts that they think win them votes. They're stunts that the Greens can pump out as video clips across social media. It's a disgrace. They're social media clips that whip up community division. They're social media clips that encourage the blockading of electorate offices. Electorate offices are there for the most vulnerable in our electorates to seek help. Australians who are coming to their MP's office are seeking help—help for their health, help for housing and help for their families. But I guess the Greens don't count them. These Australians don't count the Greens either.

Senate adjourned at 17 : 10