George Brandis (Queensland, Liberal Party, Attorney-General) Share this | Hansard source

Senator Lazarus, I can assure you that the Prime Minister and every minister in the government have the greatest respect for the eight crossbench senators, including for you. We may disagree with you, as plainly we do on a number of important measures, but we respect you personally, and we respect your constitutional position and the way in which you discharge it.

But I am bound to say that the Prime Minister and the government are frustrated at the fact that so much legislation that is important to the Australian people has been blocked by this chamber. The Senate should be a chamber of review, a house of review—not a house of refusal. Yet time and time again, the Labor Party and the Greens—with which, I am sorry to say, on occasions the crossbench senators have joined—have blocked important legislation. The most recent example is the government's higher education reforms. As we all know, last night this chamber blocked those reforms and, in doing so, dealt a terrible setback to the Australian higher education sector, a terrible setback to Australian universities—