Nick Xenophon (SA, Independent) Share this | Hansard source

I can indicate that I will not be supporting the censure motion and I will outline my reasons why. I can say at the outset that if the Gillard government was a majority government I might be inclined to support this motion, but that is not the case. In what some have called the new paradigm after the election result, which very few foresaw, we see a minority government for the first time in something like 70 years. That has obviously caused a rethink of policies and priorities.

Let us look at the wording of this motion. I can understand and respect the opposition’s right to move this motion, but it uses the words ‘gross deception’. ‘Deception’ is an act of deceiving. It is a state of being deceived. It is intended to deceive. It is a case of fraud or artifice. In other words, it is something that is quite deliberately intended. In ‘gross deception’, the adjective says it is unqualified, it is complete, it is rank, it is flagrant and it is extreme. I think that if the Gillard government had been returned in its own right then this particular censure motion would have a lot of merit. Clearly as a result of being in minority government compromises have been made, and I think we on all sides know about politics sometimes being the art of the possible, of compromises being made if they are justified, and that they have to be justified in the context of circumstances.

It also is important to put on the record that the leader of the government said there has been consultation with Independents and the Greens. I am not one of those Independents. I am not on that committee, much as I would have liked to participate in that committee—