Bob Brown (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

Thank you, Mr Deputy President; that is a very good ruling. There is a bit of thin skin amongst some colleagues sitting on my right in the National Party. Let me make this absolutely clear. I did not say that they were in the pockets of the mining industry. I said that they had collaborated with them on this issue. That is a problem for them. The difficulty with their motion is that they took the teeth out of it—and this motion from the Greens puts them back in. It says that the federal government has the powers to ensure that this inherently dangerous mineral exploration under these prime crop lands in the Liverpool Plains does not proceed and calls on the federal government to make sure of that.