Helen Polley (Tasmania, Australian Labor Party, Shadow Parliamentary Secretary for Aged Care) Share this | Hansard source

I want to make a few remarks in relation to this report of the Legal and Constitutional Affairs References Committee, Establishment of a national registration system for Australian paramedics to improve and ensure patient and community safety. I just find it incredible that Senator Macdonald, a senator with such a long career in this place, would not be able to support the establishment of a national registration system for Australian paramedics to improve and ensure patient and community safety. I think that says it all. We heard in his previous contribution to this chamber the ramblings of a senator who has obviously been here for a long time. Maybe he gets a bit tired of some of these committees and having to participate. I think it is our responsibility in this place, when a reference is made to a committee, to make every endeavour to make a contribution.

In terms of some of the comments that Senator Macdonald was making before, and his usual rants and personal attacks, about whether or not somebody is not going to make a contribution or has not made a contribution—we are all a bit tired of the same old mantra; we really are. People who have been in this chamber have heard me speak on numerous occasions about the Defence Force—those people who have served our country, those people who have laid their lives on the line for us, those people, such as my family, who have stood shoulder to shoulder in battles with their fellow Australians. I have never once made any comments in relation to the former member for Bass's military service. I am the first person to stand up and to pay tribute to those who serve in the defence forces.

My family has a proud history. My father survived the Burma railway line for 3½ years. He survived Changi. He gave the best part of his life for this country because he believed in what he was doing. I would not be here, obviously, if he had not returned from that. Senator Macdonald stood up in this chamber and cast aspersions, saying I was being disrespectful to a former member of this place—and the seat of Bass has had another Liberal member who had a distinguished service in the military—and it needs to be corrected on the record. At no time have I, or would I, ever cast aspersions on the former member for Bass's contribution to this country through the Defence Force.

But I have, as I said, a responsibility to talk about the issues that affect my community. The comments made about the Medicare campaign were extraordinary. When this side of the chamber runs a federal campaign and highlights the shortcomings of the government—and they did, in fact, set up a committee and they spent, I am sure, somewhere in the vicinity of $6 million looking at the privatisation of aspects of Medicare; that is a fact; that was not misleading. But, for Senator Macdonald to come into this chamber, as he does so regularly, and bully people, put women down on this side, as he is renowned for doing—we are just not going to sit in this chamber and say, 'Oh well, that's just Senator Macdonald. We'll just let him go, because everyone knows that he has the same rant.' I think if you go back over the 11 years that I have been in this chamber, you will hear the same rant from him, attacking people who have a different view, attacking unionists. I was never a unionist. But I defend the right of those people. As a former member of a union, you have the right. That is a right of our democracy. That is what we should be fighting for in this place. But, from the actions of this government and the former government, we know, when it comes to workers' rights, where their loyalties lie, and it is certainly not with the workers of this country. That is for sure.

But I go back to the comments that I made during my first speech, on health issues. I go back to that because—