Richard Di Natale (Victoria, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

So the test isn't whether someone chooses to believe they've done the right thing. If that were the test, we'd have to assume that everybody within the system was acting with integrity. We have anticorruption bodies in state parliaments across the country because we know that there are some members of this chamber and other chambers across the country who don't do the right thing. I personally believe that the overwhelming majority of members of this place and the other place do do the right thing, but we cannot rely on the goodwill of each and every individual member of this parliament to ensure that the right thing is done.

In this instance there are serious questions around Senator Roberts. The right thing, the decent thing, the honourable thing, would have been yesterday, when these other matters were dealt with, for Senator Roberts to have been referred by One Nation to the High Court. Instead, under duress at a minute to midnight, with a motion put forward by the Australian Greens about to pass the Senate, we had a mea culpa from One Nation—'We better do this.' That's not good enough.

There are still many questions hanging over other members of this place and the other place. It's remarkable now that it is One Nation who have proposed to support the Greens' position for an independent audit conducted of every member of parliament to ensure that they are, indeed, eligible to stand as representatives of the federal parliament. It's absolutely remarkable now that we have One Nation setting a higher standard than the Liberal Party and the Labor Party. There is no clearer example of the closed shop that happens when they know that they are coming under scrutiny. We see the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, the Coles and Woolies of politics, coming together to protect themselves.

What we need now more than ever is transparency and accountability within our democracy. It has fallen on us, the Greens, to inject some transparency and some accountability into the closed shop that we see from both of the major parties, so shortly we will be putting forward a motion, not just regarding Senator Roberts but requiring each and every individual senator and member of parliament to ensure that they are eligible to stand here. If One Nation can support it then surely the standard that they set can be met by the Labor Party and the Liberal Party, and the test of that will come very soon.