Lin Thorp (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

I believe that my comments are directly relevant because they are talking about the fact that we are using the valuable time of this Senate to attack the credibility and the ethics of a member of this place and to go more broadly than that and actually refer to other individual members of not only this place but also other places. So I believe my comments are directly relevant.

Senator Crossin interjecting—

Yes, fancy having to withdraw that. That was appalling. We are here to work for the good of Australia. In fact, our place on the world stage as represented by the foreign minister, Minister Carr, is one that is enviable. In 2010, from memory, we were described by the United Nations as the second best place to live in the world, and we want things to be of a high standard. Everyone on this side of this place defends the fact that we need to have strong anticorruption measures in place. Of course we do, and we totally and utterly support them. It is unfortunate that there are times when, in the interests of the greater good, these things need to be brought out into the public arena, but they do need to be exposed to the harsh light of day if any impropriety or misbehaviour is taking place. We are all in agreement about that—not to use a debate in this place which could be about things that are really relevant to the Australian people to attack the foreign minister. We have measures in place to deal with that.

The job of this place is to look at the policies that affect the Australian community. That is what the Australian people expect of us, and we, as members of government, know and expect that we should get robust criticism and forensic dissection of all the policies that we are putting into place. That is what we expect of members opposite, not trivial, small-minded, mean-spirited attacks on individuals. It disappoints me, and I am quite confident that it is a source of great disappointment to the Australian people. I am sure that all my colleagues in this place in the Greens and the Independents are disappointed that this opportunity to take note of some of the important issues that were raised today, which included cancer, the situation in Nauru— (Time expired)