Barnaby Joyce (Queensland, National Party, Leader of The Nationals in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

That was the time where the last semblance of nobility for the independent position was lost. We had been seeking that inquiry in this place for so long, and so many people have been battling for so long to get that lady her day for some form of justice. When that was denied by the Greens we knew that the whole thing had really started to stink to high heaven in how this organisation is working.

The Greens are a part of the key positions of the government—it is a Greens-Labor Party-Independent alliance. We all remember the vision of them all standing with their corsages in their lapels as they signed the registry to state that they would be supporting the government and that is how the government would form a government. Now they are completely corrupting the process of the Senate, the chamber that gave them succour and the capacity to have a voice in our nation. They are now completely corrupting that process. They are corrupting it as far as Odgers is concerned. They are corrupting it as far as their actions in what is delivered, the ventilation of a vibrant and analytical form of democracy, is concerned. They are corrupting it as far as their absolutely absurd lack of recognition of the facts as to how the actual votes went is concerned.

What have they sought an inquiry into? They are called the Australian Greens. In the deep recesses of my mind I have this association between the word 'green' and the environment. I thought that that would be the premier issue. When I think about the environment I think green. I think: 'Well, they're always frolicking around in the mushrooms in the forests with the frogs'—the party for frogs—but, no. It is legal and con. It is social engineering that they are really interested in. When you scratch the surface this is the party about social engineering. This is the party that always puts up the flag and collects people around with: 'I love my roses. You love your roses. If you love your garden you love the Greens,' and then we find that what they are really interested in is the social engineering exercise. In their form of Maslow hierarchy of needs, at the very top, before eating or sleeping or anything else that pertains to it, other more banal pursuits of the basic form of human instinct, their main issue is social engineering—to change the whole structure and to work their way into people's lives by the manipulative sense of making you feel good, of righteousness, of: 'We're saving the trees. We're saving the creeks. We are looking after the frogs. We're saving the fish.' But, when push comes to shove, when they have to nominate a committee, they nominate the committee to reorganise the social fabric. That is what they are truly interested in.

So where does this faux nobility go from here? Their eyes are focused. They draw an association between themselves and the Democrats. There are many people, I am certain, who voted for the Democrats who are wondering now where their vote has ended up. Think of people like former Senator Andrew Murray, a person respected on all sides of the chamber. He had his bleats, but the one thing he was not was anybody's patsy. He was his own person. Those people had a capacity to have genuine independence, to voice their views and to stand behind them. The Democrats were an independent party. The Greens are not an independent party. If you want a classic example of that, even within this chamber, I would have to say I have heard Dougie Cameron, as much as I disagree with him, at times say things—