Sue Lines (President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

A letter has been received from Senator Bragg:

Pursuant to standing order 75, I propose that the following matter of public importance be submitted to the Senate for discussion:

The Albanese Labor Government's high taxing and high spending strategy is killing the Great Australian Dream of owning a home, their hapless policies have been widely recognised as ineffective, and interest rates staying higher for longer is placing even more pressure on Australian families who are already doing it tough.

Is the proposal supported?

More than the number of senators required by the standing orders having risen in their places—

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

With the concurrence of the Senate, the clerks will set the clocks in line with the informal arrangements of the whips.

Andrew Bragg (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Home Ownership) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

This matter of public importance is all about the Labor Party having extinguished the Australian dream. Over the last 2½ years, the Australian dream has become further and further out of reach for younger Australians. Not only has Labor presided over the biggest influx of migrants since the 1950s, but it has presided over a collapse in housing construction from 220,000 houses eight years ago to just 160,000 houses this year and fewer than 160,000 houses next year.

The government has one cruel idea for first home buyers—one. We've heard the Prime Minister and the new housing minister talk, over the last three days, about their one hopeless idea for first home buyers, and that is Help to Buy. It is not really an idea to help first home buyers own a home. It is an idea for the government of Australia to own 40 per cent of a person's home. That is not private ownership, and that is why these schemes, called shared-equity schemes, have been rejected by the Australian people when they have been run by the states—rejected and in many cases closed down due to insufficient demand. That is their one idea for first home buyers.

But the Labor Party have lots of ideas to help institutions build houses and own houses. There's one idea for the people, and there are lots of ideas for the top end of town: the super funds and the foreign fund managers. One idea they have for the big end of town is that the super funds would use the Housing Australia Future Fund to get taxpayer subsidies to build houses and then rent them out to Australians as if they're serfs. An even worse idea is their bill—and we're waiting to see it soon in the Senate for debate and a vote—on the question of tax subsidies for foreign fund managers. Labor want to cut taxes so it is easier for foreign fund managers to build what's known as build-to-rent housing. They're houses that the Australian people will never ever own but that the foreign fund managers like BlackRock and the sovereign wealth funds will own in perpetuity. So they're out of ideas on homeownership—out of ideas on the demand side. That is why the Senate has wisely, in the absence of any good ideas from the government, established an inquiry into lending standards and the cost of lending regulation.

We on this side understand—and it seems parts of the crossbench do too—that it is very hard to get a first home if you can't get a mortgage. In fact, it's impossible. The question of the cost of lending regulation and what that is doing to first home buyers is a very pertinent question indeed at the moment. We know that the serviceability buffer of three per cent that APRA has in place is now at the top of a tightening cycle, a tightening cycle which has been fuelled by the government's reckless fiscal management. That now effectively means that, for a prospective first home buyer, they are being assessed not at six per cent but at nine per cent when they go into a bank or a mortgage broker to get a mortgage. That is pushing many first home buyers out of the market. The Centre for Independent Studies has said in a submission to our inquiry that the buffer is very bad because it applies to all loans, including those on fixed rates, even though those rates cannot rise. This is compulsory protection against a risk that cannot occur. That's from the CIS.

We believe that it is entirely reasonable for the parliament to step in and set some rules in relation to mortgages and lending. This is not like the independent preserve that is required for monetary policy. It is not good enough for the government to say: 'We're giving it all to APRA. We're going to leave it all to the unelected bureaucrats to make all the lending laws in the dark down there in Sydney.' We think it is very important that we look at the mandate of APRA. Can that be channelled to support first home ownership, and can we look at these policies, like the lending buffer, to ensure that they are going to promote first home ownership rather than take away the Australian dream, which Labor has almost already killed with its terrible, failed supply policies and its cruel, mean hoax of a demand policy called Help to Buy.

Jess Walsh (Victoria, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I thank my colleague Senator Bragg for this motion on housing and homeownership because housing affordability is a really significant issue in our society today. Owning a home is a dream that most Australians hold. It is the case that today it can take many years to save a deposit for a home, a home that costs several times the average Australian income at least. I think that we are agreed on what the challenge is here. The question for us as a parliament is what to actually do about this challenge after a decade of a Liberal agenda where absolutely nothing was done for housing. There was no strategy for housing in this country under those opposite. There was no investment in housing over a decade from those opposite. There was no plan. There was nothing.

So, again, the question is: what do we do today when we face this challenge? According to Senator Bragg, who has just spoken, what you do to help people buy a house is block the actual plan that is in front of the parliament to help people buy a house. That is the great solution from those opposite. The Help to Buy plan is a good plan. It will help 40,000 Australians buy a home. It will help them do that with as little as a two per cent deposit, and it will help them do that with a smaller mortgage to service. It is a good plan, so what is incomprehensible to me is why those opposite are blocking it and why they are joining with the Australian Greens to block the plan that is in front of the parliament to help people buy a home today.

The next step in the plan of the coalition, after blocking the Help to Buy legislation, is to become the government and legislate super for housing. The next step of their plan is to ask Australians to raid their superannuation savings in order to make a deposit for a house. This is a choice that no other generation of Australians has been asked to make. Asking people to pour their superannuation into housing will have two results and two results only. One is that it will push house prices up further and make housing less affordable. All the experts who come to our committees, the committees that I share with Senator Bragg, say this: super for housing is inflationary. It will push house prices up. The second effect of this policy is that it will push people to retire in poverty, to rely on the age pension without their superannuation.

Every expert agrees that the answer to housing affordability is building more supply. Now, the one policy that the coalition has, their super for housing policy, only contributes to demand. It pushes prices up. It doesn't build a single home. There is no policy from those opposite to increase supply. There is not one single policy to build one single home.

This is a Liberal Party masterclass on how to do absolutely nothing about a problem that people are actually experiencing today, so it's no wonder they have found new friends with the Australian Greens, the other party in this chamber that likes to give us a daily masterclass in doing absolutely nothing, talking up a good game and then joining with their friends—the Liberals, the coalition, those opposite—to block the policy that is in front of the parliament right now to actually help Australians buy a house. For 40,000 Australians, it means a two per cent deposit and a smaller mortgage, and what we have is the Greens joining together with their new besties in the coalition to block that policy.

There is no policy from those opposite to build more houses, and there is nothing from the Greens.

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

In the face of the housing crisis in this country, the massive crisis that is smashing the lives of millions of Australians, the real masterclass in doing nothing is coming from the Australian Labor Party. Not only do their policies do nothing; the so-called Help to Buy legislation that is before this parliament may—and I do say 'may'—provide marginal help to an extremely small number of people who want to get out of the rental market and buy a home. There are 0.2 per cent of Australian renters who might be lucky enough to win the lottery that the legislation is proposing, but the other 99.8 per cent of renters, whom that legislation will not help, will actually be worse off if the legislation passes because it will increase house prices in Australia.

That's the problem with Labor's so-called Help to Buy legislation. That's why we are desperate for Labor to come to the table and negotiate with the Greens to fix it, and the questions for Senator Walsh, Senator McAllister and others are: Why won't you not negotiate with the Greens? Why is it your way or the highway? Why do you want to make it harder for 99.8 per cent of Australian renters to actually get into the homeownership market?

This housing crisis is no accident. It's the result of a system designed by the neoliberal parties, the Labor and Liberal Parties, to create a neofeudalist society where property ownership is the only ticket to social progress. They give away obscene tax breaks—$176 billion dollars in tax breaks projected over 10 years in Labor's last budget—to things like negative gearing and the capital gains tax discount. They will line the pockets of investors, property developers and property speculators while millions of Australians remain trapped in rental stress or homelessness. If you don't own a home at the moment in Australia, good luck in getting by. This is no accident. Again, the establishment parties in this place have abjectly failed to build in enough homes over many decades. That has been the case because they don't believe in homes as a place for people to live; they believe that homes—houses—are an asset class in this country.

That's where they differ from the Greens. The Greens understand that homes are a human right and that every Australian in our society has the right to live in a safe, affordable, dignified home. That's what we're trying to achieve. Labor should come to the table and work with us.

Maria Kovacic (NSW, Liberal Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Homeownership is absolutely a matter of public importance. The price of housing in this country has gone up by 13.1 per cent since the last election. Families are struggling to pay their mortgages. Families are struggling to pay their rent. Someone with a mortgage has seen their interest rates rise 12 times under this government. We've spoken many times in this chamber about that equating to a family or someone with an average mortgage of $750,000 being $35,000 a year worse off. That's an extraordinary amount of money. It's basic maths that, with interest rates doubling or repayments doubling, if your loan repayment was $4,000 a month when this government came into power, your loan repayment now sits at around $8,000 a month. That's a lot of extra money to have to find.

In the US, in the UK, in Canada and in New Zealand, interest rates have already come down. This government keeps pointing to the opposition and saying that it inherited this and it inherited that. This government has been in office for almost a full term. All of our global contemporaries have been able to manage inflation. They've been able to see their interest rates come down. That hasn't happened in Australia, because we have homegrown inflation here. That is what we are dealing with now: inflation that is here because of the actions and inaction of this government. Australian families, Australian small businesses and young Australians who are trying to break into the property market are paying the price for that.

All we keep hearing about is how all the coalition want to do is raid super and raid piggy banks. I have some news for the government: the money in our super belongs to us. It does not belong to any government. It does not belong to any super fund. It is money that has been taken out of the salaries of everyday Australians. It's been sequestered in an account, and we're told that, if we want to use that for housing security, we're bad and we're raiding our own money. I've spoken about this before. Explain to me why a woman at 55, in the largest-growing cohort of homelessness, cannot access her super to help her buy a home but 10 years later can use that same super to pay rent to somebody else. Explain that to me.

Australian households have been in 18 months of household recession, and the latest national accounts show us the slowest GDP growth since the 1990s. Yet this government goes, 'Here's Help to Buy; this will solve the housing problem.' No it won't. It's a niche program open to only 10,000 households each financial year, and it's going to cost $5.5 billion. There is a lot that we don't know about it. What happens when significant repairs have to be undertaken? What happens if major construction needs to be done? Maybe the family wants to do an extension. Do they have to then sell their home and move somewhere else? Do they have to go back to the government for some more money? Who ends up keeping that equity if they choose to spend that themselves? What changes? We don't know. We have no idea what happens, because the government haven't given us any details on it, which is pretty consistent with the way they operate.

They say there will be 10,000 spaces. We have something like 2.9 million Australians living in rental properties. So we're going to offer an opportunity to 10,000 people to get into their own home, or 10,000 households, per year. This highlights that this government has no new ideas, that there is no real investment in housing, that there are not enough homes being built, that there are no real initiatives for first home buyers and that there are no initiatives for renters who wish to get out of the rental cycle and own their own home. This is entirely unacceptable, and there absolutely needs to be some fundamental rework of policies to actually deliver housing to Australians and deliver opportunities for Australians to own their own home.

Marielle Smith (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I also rise to speak on this MPI. There is absolutely no economic issue weighing more heavily on the minds and hearts of millennial Australians than the issue of homeownership. Young Australians—my generation of Australians—feel let down, and they feel locked out of the housing market. They have seen a change in what they can aspire to. They've seen a change in the market around them. They have felt unheard and let down for too many years as they have raised the alarm that housing continues to feel out of reach for them and for the generations coming after them and what that means in terms of their economic opportunities, their potential, their futures and how they raise their families, what communities they live in and how connected and close they stay to their parents and where they grew up. These issues weigh heavily.

It is the source of huge frustration for these Australians that, when they look at a chamber like ours and they look at the parliament, they see political parties that are more interested in and more focused on teaming up to stop action on housing and to stop policies which would promote supply or help young Australians get into a home. There is more focus and energy on that, on the tactics and politics of the day, than on the policy development. That is deeply distressing to them, indeed.

Again today, we've had more time spent on crafting a motion than on crafting policy ideas. We've had one policy idea from the opposition, and that's to raid your superannuation to buy a house. Their idea is that, if you're a young Australian, you have to choose between superannuation and homeownership. Superannuation was never intended for that. It is about having a secure retirement. I don't think it's right that young Australians should have to choose, that we should limit the aspirations of young Australians to that choice. Labor believes you should have both. We believe in superannuation and we believe that ordinary Australians should be able to own a home. We believe that nurses, childcare workers and teachers should be able to own their own home.

Our Help to Buy policy, which the Greens, the Liberals and the Nationals teamed up to block out of this place, would've helped low- and middle-income earners into a home—tens of thousands of them. Who benefits from the decision to block that legislation? Absolutely no-one, except maybe the social media clicks of the Greens political party. There's a political advantage here, but there's no policy outcome for people.

Millennial Australians want to get into a home. They know that the answer to the problems before us is supply. The answer is supply, and I've yet to see a single plan put on the table by those opposite which would do anything to encourage supply. There is this unholy alliance in this parliament which, for political gain, is so focused on blocking progress and denying people the opportunity to buy a home. It's just so unfair. It is so unfair to millennial Australians, who want the same opportunities that their parents had and deserve that opportunity, who don't want to have to choose between superannuation and homeownership and who don't think it's fair that their aspirations are limited by the generations before them, including those in this chamber. They don't think that's fair, and I don't think it's fair either.

We have brought policy after policy to this chamber, seeking support to take action on a crisis which weighs heavily on the hearts of these Australians, and we've seen those political parties team up to block and delay. They are delaying the HAFF and blocking other pieces of legislation, including on rent-to-buy—that's off the table. They haven't come in here with a plan or a policy which would actually make a difference in people's lives. They're more interested in their social media algorithms and clicks than they are in building social housing. That's a sorry and sad state of affairs. The other side are more interested in limiting the aspirations of young Australians than in backing them in and supporting them.

This is a ridiculous state of affairs. People look at this parliament and see that we have the power to do something. We have the power to do something on supply. We have the power to help ordinary people into homes and to focus on what we can do to increase supply and get people into homes. There is this unholy alliance more interested in and committed to the political outcomes of what it might mean for them at the next election than what young people are calling for, and that's to have their aspirations to own a home realised.

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

On his website, Australian Greens housing spokesperson, Max Chandler-Mather, says, 'People have lost faith in the political system.' I agree, except Mr Chandler-Mather is part of the problem. Instead of doing a deal with the government to get a system going that could help low-income people into the housing market, the Greens housing guy is insisting on a rent freeze—a policy that all serious economists and housing policy experts reckon will make the situation worse. Max Chandler-Mather is often on TV banging on about wanting to stop single mums from being evicted. Then why does his housing policy propose a rent cap at $90 more per week than the maximum parenting payment available to single mothers? His idea of what is affordable is totally out of touch. Chandler-Mather's housing policy says that rents for public housing could be capped at 25 per cent of the national household income. The latest figures put that at just over 120 grand a year. It's $200 more a week than the rate of JobSeeker—what a joke! Do you know the Greens' problem? Most of them have no idea what it's like to struggle on a low income let alone being a single mum. They don't know what it's like to be on public housing waiting list, and Max Chandler-Mather has zero idea what it's like to be a single mother on a low income.

The Greens pretend to be a voice for working people—what a big steaming pile of BS that is. The Deputy Leader of the Greens, Senator Faruqi, also loves to bang on about affordable housing, but she is a wheeler and dealer of investment property. She even had plans to bulldoze 20 gum trees at one of her properties. How un-Australian, to cut down a koala's home. If the Greens do want to help Australians get a roof over their heads, they will pull their collective heads in—

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim on a point of order?

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

Under standing order 193.3, imputing the motivations of senators is out of order, as is, by the way, imputing motivations of members of the other place. That applies whether or not what you're saying is true rather than a great big load of rubbish, which is what Senator Lambie's just been spouting.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I didn't actually hear an imputation of actual motive. I did hear a lot of criticism. Senator McAllister?

Jenny McAllister (NSW, Australian Labor Party, Assistant Minister for Climate Change and Energy) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On a separate point of order, interjections are disorderly. Senator Lambie has been delivering her speech and, during the entire time, Senator McKim has been interjecting.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Anyway, Senator Lambie, you have the call.

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

And then there is the Greens' Treasury spokesperson, Nick McKim, who told the Prime Minister via social media last year that he should 'shut up about his childhood story'. How rude! What he didn't tell his followers is he owns four houses himself. How dare you tell people who've lived in public housing that. How dare you! If the Greens really want to help Australians get a roof over their heads, they will pull their collective heads in and pass this bill.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, on another point of order?

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

I seek leave to make a personal explanation of no more than 10 seconds.

Leave not granted.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McGrath, let's take it to a higher plane.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I have come here to the rescue. But I would like to commend Senator Lambie for bringing the Greens into this housing debate. What we need to do is just remember what this debate is about:

The Albanese Labor Government's high taxing and high spending strategy is killing the Great Australian Dream of owning a home, their hapless policies have been widely recognised as ineffective, and interest rates staying higher for longer in placing even more pressure on Australian families who are already doing it tough.

Andrew McLachlan (SA, Deputy-President) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Hughes on a point of order?

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

My point of order is that I'm sitting in front of Senator McGrath and I can barely hear him over—

The Deputy:

I ask for a bit of order at the back end of the chamber.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I think the back end of the chamber needs more than a bit of order; we need some common sense in the back end of the chamber, because the Greens political party are a clear and present danger to the Australian economy. They are not just a clear and present danger to the Australian economy; they are a clear and present danger to the social supports that are in Australia at the moment. We have the Greens in their housing policies talking about a rent freeze. A rent freeze is something that would come from a first-year social studies student, someone who doesn't understand the basics of economics. But then again I repeat myself because we have the Greens political party.

The Greens political party has Senator Faruqi, who bulldozed 20 homes that koalas were living in in order to build a townhouse. So we have a property developer in Senator Faruqi. Then we have the Greens members of parliament in Queensland, who go around their electorates talking about the importance of housing and how important it is for people to have a home. But, if anyone ever proposes building a home in Queensland, the first person to oppose the building of that home will be the local Green MP, because the Greens political party are a party of hypocrites. I'll get to their antisemitism and their racism later tonight, but they are a party of hypocrites when it comes to housing. These are the people who believe that the great Australian dream is to be homeless on the street, living in a cardboard box.

That is the great Australian dream—living in a cardboard box—whereas we in the coalition believe the great Australian dream is owning your own home. We in the coalition believe that you should be able to use your super—because it is your super—in order to build or buy your own home. But, no, that is not what the Greens believe. They want you to live in the gutter. They want you to live in the cardboard boxes. They weaponise housing, because they take the politics of envy to the darkest heart of their soul.

The Greens, that antisemitic, racist party—that's what they specialise in. They specialise in division in this country. They specialise in going to protests. Let us hear a Greens politician condemn the murders in Israel. Well, we won't hear that. Let a Greens politician talk about the great Australian dream. We won't hear that from them either.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order, Senators!

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They are not just the fairies at the bottom of the garden; they are the dangerous fairies at the bottom of the garden. They are goblins. They are evil orcs, actually. They are the orcs at the bottom of the garden. I blame the Labor Party, because you do preference deals with them. The only reason these people have any relevance is because you preference them. So I call upon the Labor Party—

Sarah Henderson (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Minister for Education) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Put them last!

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

to put them last. Put the Greens last. Put that antisemitic, racist party last. Make sure that you preference any other party rather than—

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Take your seat, Senator McGrath. Senator Shoebridge, on a point of order, I presume? That's the only ability you have to interrupt the debate, so what's your point of order?

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

I assume that Senator McGrath's going to tell us what he told Mr Wadsworth—is that right? Is he going to tell us—

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's not a point of order. Senator McGrath, you have the call.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I would tell the Greens to find some common sense and stop being such hateful, horrible individuals. People who despise Australian Jewish people—that's what the Greens political party has become. You are the antisemitic party. You should be ashamed of yourselves!

It is a blot on Australian democracy that antisemites like you sit in this chamber. It is a blot on our liberal democracy that antisemites like you use parliamentary privilege to defame Australians. This is what our democracy has come to.

Mehreen Faruqi (NSW, Australian Greens) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You are a disgrace!

Hollie Hughes (NSW, Liberal Party, Shadow Assistant Minister for Mental Health and Suicide Prevention) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You called for the destruction of Israel. You're an antisemite.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Order! Senator McKim, on your point of order.

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

The point of order is section 193(3) of the standing orders, on imputations of improper motive. I'm not going to cop being called an antisemite by a guy who got sacked by Boris Johnson for being a racist!

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

That's beside the point.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McGrath.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McKim, that great oxygen thief from Tasmania! Your greatest contribution to political life would be to immediately withdraw from it. What have you done for public policy in Australia? Absolutely nothing.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McGrath, take your seat. Senator McKim.

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

I'm just wondering if you could rule on my point of order that describing a group of senators as antisemites is contrary to section 193(3) of the standing orders.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

On that point of order—

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I don't need your intervention, Senator McGrath. I will take advice. But I let Senator McGrath continue on the basis that it was attributed to a group, a party, rather than an individual. I will seek advice, should my interpretation be wrong. Senator McGrath.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

They're worried because it's come too close to the bone. That's the issue with the Greens. They are the new nasty party of Australian politics. They are the party who are supposed to be about progressive politics, but they are about nasty politics. They're the party that wants to break us down by race. This is the party that should be thrown out of the chamber. This is the party who the Australian Labor Party should put last at the next election. This is the party who the Labor Party in Queensland should put last, but they won't, because the only way you can stay in power is by doing a preference deal with this horrible, nasty, racist bunch of people who live in that Greens political sphere. Put them last. Throw them out of this place.

Honourable senators interjecting—

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senators, the time for the debate has expired.

Senator McGrath, what is your point of order?

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator Shoebridge has just impugned me. I ask you to ask him to withdraw please.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I did not hear what Senator Shoebridge said. Senator Shoebridge, you understand the standing orders. Is there something you said you need to withdraw? I'll ask you to reflect on that.

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

In compliance with the standing orders, although it is true, I withdraw it.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I asked you to reflect on whether your remarks were within the standing orders or not. If they're not, you need to withdraw unconditionally.

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

Yes, I will reflect on it. I'll seek the advice of my colleagues.

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

You should withdraw. You really are a grub, aren't you?

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

Senator McGrath!

James McGrath (Queensland, Liberal National Party, Shadow Assistant Minister to the Leader of the Opposition) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

I withdraw.

Louise Pratt (WA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Link to this | Hansard source

The time for this discussion has expired.