Scott Ryan (Victoria, Liberal Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Small Business and Fair Competition) Share this | Hansard source

Mr Deputy President, when the President of the United States was here, it was like watching a student protest on television as the leftovers from the Vietnam marches of the 1960s suddenly lived out their baby boomer dreams and tried to disrupt a joint sitting of the parliament for a foreign head of state. That was a low point, Mr Deputy President, an absolute low point.

What we see from the Greens is a history of deception, duplicity and double standards. They are a group of people, a party, that talk about freedom of speech yet actually want to have an inquiry into the media, and they openly attack some private newspapers as the 'hate media'. Why do they do that? Why are those journals attacked? They are attacked because of the issue of being subjected to scrutiny. We have seen supporters of the Greens challenge television journalists and launch GetUp! campaigns because someone was not questioned in a nice way on what used to be the 'Greens Broadcasting Corporation'. How dare someone on the 'Greens Broadcasting Corporation' occasionally question them! What we are seeing right through this chamber—and I have been here for only just over three years—is a pattern of duplicity, deception and double standards.

All the opposition is asking is that Senator Hanson-Young have the opportunity to live up to the standards set by her leader—nothing less and nothing more. The modern-day Inquisition that is the Greens party is one where if you do not like the Greens they will subject you to a government media inquiry, where if you do not like the Greens they will set the mob upon you. We know the antecedents of the Greens party. We know what their supporters are like when they see people that we do not like. We were all opposed to the messages of Pauline Hanson, but it was not members of this side who were throwing urine bombs; it was not members of this side trying to blockade public meetings of people they do not like. We challenged their ideas, but the Greens seek to shut down debate. Today, just like we are seeing in the media, just like we have seen with the gag, just like we have seen with the guillotine and just like we have seen with their behaviour when foreign heads of state visit this chamber, we see nothing less than complete duplicity. The tick that is the Greens is sucking the Labor Party dry, and it is sad to see them not even willing to subject the Greens to some basic scrutiny.