Penny Wong (SA, Australian Labor Party, Leader of the Opposition in the Senate) Share this | Hansard source

I am happier to talk in this direction than that direction.

Senator Di Natale interjecting—

Oh, dear me. I will take that interjection. Senator Di Natale, who is almost hysterical today, claims that we are looking rattled. We are not the ones that have sold out mate. We are not the ones doing deals with the Libs in Victorian seats and targeting Mr Albanese and Ms Plibersek. We are not the ones voting against the marriage equality vote. We are not the ones voting with Cory Bernardi. You are the ones voting with Cory Bernardi, Senator Di Natale and his friends. But I will come back to this point.

The reality is that today the Greens have refused to support a motion that would have caused a vote on a bill on marriage equality in this Senate before everyone went home. We would have had to continue debating it until that happened. Instead, what they are proposing is a one-hour debate on Thursday, with no guarantee of a vote or an outcome. Anybody listening, please understand this: the reason they are yelling at me is because I am saying it as it is. They had an opportunity today, which they squibbed, to deliver a vote on marriage equality in this Senate. No-one could have gone home until it had happened, but they squibbed it, because what was more important was their deal with the government on Senate voting. It is pretty extraordinary, isn’t it?

Now they want us to agree to their private senators' business motion. They want to change what is to be debated. We are prepared to support that, but they know it will be an hour-long debate. They know it will not come to a vote. We understand in this chamber, and I think anybody who has been following this today understands, what this is. This is an attempt to try and make themselves look better. This is an attempt to cover up the fact that you voted with senators Abetz and Bernardi to prevent debate on a marriage equality bill. This is the Greens trying to justify the position they took this morning—'every green, every vote, every time', except for today.

It will be an hour-long debate. The bill that is being debated is my bill, and I will say: 'Yes, fine. You want a debate on marriage equality? We will put it on too. We will have the debate.' We know and you know that it will not be brought to a vote, and that is what angers us the most. What angers us the most is the pious lecturing from the Greens, over and over again, about how principled they are on marriage equality. That piousness evaporated today as Senator Di Natale led them over the other side to sit with people like Senator Abetz and Senator Bernardi, who are vehemently opposed to marriage equality, to ensure we did not get a full debate and a vote.

Instead, what they offer is some attempt to make themselves look better and an attempt to recover some moral authority. They offer up an hour and say: 'See. We're really serious. We weren’t this morning. Oops, we weren’t this morning.' That is the reality about the position of the Australian Greens. It is a sort of combination of spinelessness and incompetency, if I may say, because they had the opportunity this morning and they squibbed it, and now they want to make Australians believe that an hour-long debate is somehow the same. This is cynical politics at its best, and the Australian Greens know that. You have to wonder what it takes for Senator Di Natale and his colleagues to sit on the same side, when it comes to marriage equality, as Senator Bernardi and Senator Abetz.

Senator Di Natale is going to get on his feet now. I look forward to this, and I might seek leave to make a statement afterwards to make up for the time he tried to gag me. How about that? I will let him speak.