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

Well, you might think that is funny. Liberal senators might think that is funny; I think it is absolutely disgusting. I think you should be ashamed of yourselves. I think you should have a bit more control of the way some of the people who think your way act and behave. The fact that outside this parliament just yesterday we saw security guards removing supporters of this coalition after they had disrupted question time in the other place while down on the lawns in front orderly Australian citizens were putting forward a point in favour of action on climate change shows the difference between the extremists who back the Liberal Party and Senator Abetz and the decency of people who are concerned about issues and want them properly debated in this place.

The Australian's front-page story today has come out of a committee release which was a result of questions put by Senator Crossin, and I have this question to ask of those opposite: don't they want information coming out? Is it the case that the Ombudsman and the information coming from the Ombudsman should not be on the public record? Is it the quest of the opposition to suppress such information? I find it more than passing strange that the Australian today did not run the fact, from our press release yesterday, that I asked questions of the Ombudsman which were instigated by the Ombudsman's office because the answers to those questions should be on the public record.

Of course, we have the ABC coat-tailing on the Australian today on a press release yesterday that they missed. I and Sarah Hanson-Young and my Greens team are very happy to be on the side of getting information out into the public and defending the Ombudsman's office. It is, after all, not something that ministers on either side happen to like. The Ombudsman is there as the watchdog of the public interest, and ministers do not like that—