Christine Milne (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

I hear an interjection that tells me that I am anti father. Quite to the contrary, my model of politics is of progressive politics. And I repeat: my model of family is the nurturing parent family—the one that supports empathy and responsibility, where both parents have a major role to play in a society which also respects sustainability. And sustainability means looking not only at the social fabric but also at the environmental fabric and making sure that neither is pursued to the detriment of the other—and that is where I think we would have a vastly different view of the world from that of Senator Abetz.

In terms of my view of the world, healthy communities are needed for healthy individuals. Policies that support healthy communities do include well-trained and equipped people working in hospitals, clinics and institutions that care for the community. It would mean access to fair lending laws, adhering to environmental standards, cooperating, meeting shared goals and open communication requiring trust. In foreign policy terms, my model would have cooperation and multilateralism, not the moral right to go in and bomb where you see fit to do so in association with another strict father figure—that is, President George Bush in the United States. So it is a vastly different view of the world as expressed here. But let me tell you that progressive politics is reclaiming the values debate in Australia. Progressive politics is out there saying, ‘We stand for freedom, fairness, antidiscrimination and equal rights under the law.’