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

The opposition is in raucous mode today, because it lost its attempt to block legislation in the House of Representatives last night which will have an $11 billion benefit for the Australian people. It must be said that Australia is indeed the lucky country in that we have a mineral wealth that makes us, according to the United Nations, the wealthiest country on Earth, per capita, in terms of natural resources. It has been a very strong Greens point of view that those natural resources should be shared as far as possible by the Australian people. The coalition wants that money to flow to the already wealthy, unrestrained. What the Gillard government has done here is legislate to bring back some of the money to undoubtedly be able to fund health, education, security—