Carol Brown (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Families and Payments) Share this | Hansard source

I rise to speak on the report of the Joint Standing Committee on Electoral Matters inquiry into the Commonwealth Electoral Amendment Bill 2016. One issue that Senator O'Sullivan refused to go near when he was making his contribution was the process—the process that has got us to this point. It is a process where we saw the AEC say to JSCEM that they had only seen the bill on 11 February—it is not the same bill they would have seen because of course it has been amended, because it has been rushed; there has been an obscene effort to rush this legislation through this parliament because they do not want proper scrutiny. What is wrong with a bit of proper scrutiny? The Greens are always the first ones to scream about having transparency and scrutiny, but not when Senator Rhiannon is in charge—they are not interested in any scrutiny or transparency then.

Senator Rhiannon's contribution indicated that somehow the Greens are above politics. I can tell you, they get down and dirty—they are in the back rooms, they are doing the deals. At every federal election they do deals for preferences, so they cannot come in here and try to pretend that they are not doing deals on preferences. Of course they are.