Peter Whish-Wilson (Tasmania, Australian Greens) Share this | Hansard source

( If my political party turned our backs on our hard-fought and long-held principles every time we came under some political pressure, we would not be who we are as a party. We would not be the Greens. We would stand for nothing. If every time we came under political pressure to not do the right thing because of some kind of political strategy or because some stakeholders want us to delay legislation or it is all too hard, we would not be the Greens political party; we would in fact be the Labor Party.

The Greens have campaigned on democratic electoral reform for over a decade. Our party, which was formed 45 years ago, has as one of its core principles—one of its four principles in its charter—participative democracy. It is absolutely crucial to who we are as a party. We are also a party who represents our grassroots members. Our members write our policies and our national council constantly works with the party room on how we deliver these policies and these principles.

Looking at the opportunism in this chamber in the last couple of weeks what we have seen has been nothing short of pathetic student politics from the Labor Party, unlike the Greens, who have campaigned on democratic reform which gives every Australian the right to choose where their preferences go and removes the undemocratic backroom dealing. The Labor Party did support democratic reform in the Senate but—