Alex Gallacher (SA, Australian Labor Party) Share this | Hansard source

And:

Kindest regards,

Harry Power

I am sure you will write them a letter, Senator Simms. That is why they responded to you. This is the response. It is your unmitigated disaster—a disgrace to true democracy and egalitarianism. That is not from our side of the table but from their side of the table. That is one of their supporters. That is one of their supporters' contributions to this debate. I just mention that in passing.

This is a bill that has managed to pass the House of Representatives without a joint committee report even being completed. It is a done deal. It is a process. Most of us in political life or even in business life, union life or just life in general know what a deal is. It is a meeting of people's inclinations—the way they want to go forward.

It appears very clear that the Leader of the Australian Greens, the new leader, is quite a departure from the Christine Milne model or the Bob Brown model. The Senator Di Natale model is quite different. It is a pragmatic power grab. There is no doubt about that. Senator Di Natale seeks more influence, and good luck to him. He seeks more influence with whichever government is elected in Australia. He seeks for his party to be the party of scrutiny, if you like, or achieving their ends, and that is what politics is all about. But he is going to face the scrutiny of his own membership. He is going to face the scrutiny of all of those people who align themselves with the Greens party.

I suppose, if we look back in history, the Democrats faced the same scrutiny. The Democrats faced the same scrutiny when they made some arrangements with governments which did not turn out to be as fortuitous as they may well have thought. They may have been pragmatic decisions at the time. They may well have been decisions to have influence now, but history will show that the Democrats are no longer represented in this chamber.

That is something that the Australian Greens should properly reflect upon, because you have to be true to your ideology. You have to be true to the people who send you here. This is really never about us. It is never about our time in the chamber. It is our representational efforts for the people who sent us. If you ever forget that and you start thinking it is about your position at the table, your power at the table, where you are in the pecking order, who has to look up or down to you, then you are getting a bit far away from where you need to be.

We believe it has been a rushed reform. The AEC states that it needs three months to get these changes in place. If this does go ahead and there is a double-D, it might have to manually count all the ballots. Who knows?