James Paterson (Victoria, Liberal Party) Share this | Hansard source

It's a hard concept to wrap your head around, Senator Dastyari! I know you in particular would be mortified to know there are young people who haven't seen one of your Facebook videos, but it's true. They are out there, and they're not particularly interested in your videos or my videos or in the voting age. What they are interested in is the economic security they hope to have when they grow up and the economic security they hope to have for their children when they eventually have them. It's worth pointing out the delicious irony, when we hear about the higher rates of engagement of young people with the marriage survey and, of course, the record enrolment of all people—but particularly young people—on the electoral roll as a result of the marriage survey, that those things came about due to a policy staunchly opposed by those opposite and those on the crossbench. In a funny way, young people have been motivated more by participating in this survey than any normal election, than any normal choice between political leaders, because it is an issue that affects them and their friends and they want to have their say on it. I encourage them and congratulate them for doing so.

The government will not be engaging in any consideration of this, recognising that it is, of course, really an attempt from One Nation to play to their base and the Greens to play to their base, when it's incumbent on parties of government to be sensible on these issues and not change things that don't need changing.