Joe Ludwig (Queensland, Australian Labor Party, Manager of Government Business in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

And the opposition should let me get to that point, but they cannot. They want to continue to shout and complain. If they had listened to me in the first place, I would have gone on to say that Senator Abetz did face up to the issue, did face up to Privileges, did explain his position and did take the proper course in all of that. The Godwin Grech issue was not something that anyone would be proud of in this place, but Senator Abetz did face the music in respect of that matter—and we did not, from the position of opposition or from government, undertake this particular task. We gave senators an opportunity to respond in this place or referred them or used the procedures in this place to deal with it rather than walking in here without notice and using this opportunity as a stunt to run a couple of arguments.

It was not only the argument in relation to the substantive matter that you are seeking to suspend standing orders over; you then tied in your complete negativity in relation to the clean energy bills. You just want to come in here and say no. All that Mr Abbott wants to do in relation to that legislation is say no. What the opposition are doing is rank hypocrisy—to come in here and undertake this task without giving the Senate an opportunity to deal with it in the usual way. You want to simply rerun your hatred of and pathological difficulties with the Greens from the opposition, it appears. That is all it seems to be and what you simply want to do.